What is Decompression?
EDIT TO GRAPHIC TEXT: You may be meeting your new dog during the most difficult time of his life.
Your new dog is on Mars. He has no idea where he is, who you are, or if he’s safe. The changes he has encountered are unfathomable to us, and overwhelming to him.
To live in our human world, dogs thrive on predictability and routine. It’s how they measure their level of safety, and understand what’s about to happen to them. Dogs who are rehomed have had enormous changes in their routines, which causes significant amounts of stress. This is physical as well as emotional; panic hormones such as cortisol are released into the brain and body, and this has short term and long term effects. The longer cortisol levels are elevated, the more likely it is that physical as well as mental health will be compromised.
Family and community, and routine and predictability are the cornerstones of safety for a dog. For that reason, a dog who is rehomed from a stable, loving home may experience the same amount of stress as a dog who has been saved from a puppy mill or hoarding situation, as the puppy mill dog was likely habituated to that situation. While not ideal, he knew what to expect from day to day, as did the dog in a stable home. We cannot know what the dog is feeling, but it is safe to assume that every dog who is rehomed experiences more stress and anxiety than we can imagine.
Even if your new dog has been in several foster homes, or has been with GBRR for months, he is starting over with you. Your home and surroundings are unknown, and you are a stranger to him. Be aware that this is a huge reset; expect him to need adequate time and space to decompress again.
Until the dog’s sense of wellbeing outweighs his sense of stress, he cannot relax, feel safe, or learn effectively. He arrives with his own unique set of baggage and coping skills, and has experienced a huge amount of change. On top of that, we ask him to endure scary things he cannot understand. This creates an imbalance of stress, which affects his behavior and ability to think clearly.
| Stressors | Decompression |
|---|---|
Baggage
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Security
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Change
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Agency (Freedom of Choice)
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Scary Things
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Enrichment
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Understanding Bandwidth & Threshold
Dogs operate via an ancient genetic default that evaluates their world for safe/unsafe, friend/foe. This little ticker tape runs 24/7, and informs all they think, feel, and do. You can bet your foster dog’s bandwidth is consumed with this survival mechanism; very little else matters. When he seems to be inattentive or disobedient, his brain is likely focused on survival; his actions are instinctual, not willful. He’s not giving you a hard time. He’s having a hard time. Please be patient.
Stress is cumulative, and dogs, like us, have limits to how much they can handle. In the early days of decompression, your foster dog is working through more than you know. Walking in a new environment and seeing an unknown dog might put him over his threshold, and he might have a strong reaction. It’s possible the same dog, after he has decompressed, will be much better able to cope. This is why we need to slow down and protect our new dogs by not piling too many stresses on them. More: Understanding Threshold
Decompression Phases
Your new dog will go through phases, and there are things to look for to measure progress. Understanding dog body language is key.
Phase 1 – Survival – Dog’s focus will be on the basic needs to function. Safety, food and water.
Phase 2 – Settling in and learning the routine. His personality is starting to emerge, and he is more willing to engage, explore and play.
Phase 3 – Feeling at home, comfortable; more like “himself.” At this point the dog is past the decompression period.
What about the 3-3-3 rule? This says it takes three days to decompress, three weeks to learn the routine, and three months to feel at home. Understanding decompression phases is helpful, but this timeline sets unrealistic expectations. Every dog is different. Observe the dog to understand where they are in the process. Many dogs will take much longer to be fully comfortable than 3-3-3 suggests.
Measuring Progress
Every dog is an individual and we don’t know what is “normal” for him. However, here are some things to look for in each phase. Remember we’re here to help if you have concerns or questions.
| Phase | Look for… |
|---|---|
| Survival |
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| Settling In |
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| Feeling At Home |
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Phase 1 – Survival
During the first phase of decompression, these recommendations will help your new dog thrive in your home and promote safety.
| Do this… | Instead of… |
|---|---|
| Provide a safe space to rest and retreat. E.g. a covered crate with an open door in a quiet location. Don’t invade the dog’s safe space. Encourage the dog to take breaks from the family and spend some time on their own. | Forcing the dog to fully engage in the family’s routine. Give the dog plenty of time to settle in and get his bearings. Avoid meeting new people, new dogs, or experiences outside of the home in the early days. |
| Let the dog initiate contact with you. Let the dog get to know you on his own terms. Learn the appropriate way to greet a dog. Allow the dog to opt in or out when it comes to being petted. Video: Petting Consent Tests movie | Showering the dog with love and attention that isn’t welcome. You are a stranger. Don’t be an overly handsy first date. Don’t hug and kiss the dog; this invades his personal space and may be seen as threatening. |
| Closely supervise the new dog. Pay attention to body language and signs of fear and stress. Watch for signals that the dog needs to relieve himself. | Being complacent and expecting the new dog will not surprise you. Your new dog may be more of a forager or counter surfer than your resident dog, or may find unexpected items of interest to chew. |
| Leashed within the yard. Use a leash or long line even in a fenced yard for the first several days. Your dog may be an escape artist and a flight risk in the beginning. It’s very helpful for house training to keep track of output. Pick up poop promptly to avoid spreading parasites. | Allowing unsupervised yard access. Your new dog may find a way to escape that previous dogs have not. He might be a dog who eats rocks or chews on toxic plants or plastic pots. |
| Establish a routine including house-training. Be predictable and build a routine around meeting the dog’s basic needs – feeding times, opportunities to toilet outside and sleep. | Ignoring the impact of disruption. Assume that the dog is house-trained. Lack of predictability will slow down decompression. Even if a dog is reported to be house trained, your environment is new and you may not know his signals. |
| Limit access to a smaller area in the home. Baby gates, x-pens, crates, closing doors or even tethering a dog to be near you are helpful tools and aid in house-training and supervising the new dog. | Allowing full access to the house. This may be appropriate later, but not in the early days. |
| Use management to set the dog up for success. Keep counters clear to prevent counter surfing. Restrict access (crate or behind a baby gate) while you’re cooking and sitting down for a meal. | Expecting to start serious training or correct the dog for behaving “badly.” At this stage, prevention (management) is far preferable to formal, obedience-focused training. Avoid doing too much too soon. Keep your expectations low. |
| Actively manage interaction with resident pets. Be especially cautious around tight spaces (doorways, couch) and areas associated with resources (dog bed, feeding station). Give them ample time apart even if they are getting along. Closely monitor play and expect to referee. Make sure both are consenting to the interaction/play. Do not leave them together unsupervised. | Expecting everyone to immediately get along. This would be like moving in with someone right after meeting at a speed date. |
| Prevent resource guarding by keeping high value items (toys, balls, bones, enrichment food puzzles) picked up. You can give dogs high value items when they are separated by a barrier/door, and they may need toys and enrichment to manage stress. | Overlooking high value items in the home and yard that may trigger resource guarding. Don’t overlook toys in the backyard – or the toys that have a sneaky way of hiding under furniture. Note that beds and water bowls can also be guarded, though to a lesser degree. |
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Provide opportunities for enrichment. Licking is naturally calming. Provide lickable and other food enrichment items in a safe space away from other pets. Chewing, sniffing and foraging are innate dog behaviors. Provide safe ways for the dog to engage in these behaviors. Guideline: Provide your new dog one food enrichment and one environmental enrichment opportunity each day. For example, one stuffed Kong and one outing in the yard on a long line to sniff. |
Assuming that the enrichment needs are the same as current or previous dogs. There are species and breed specific preferences, but dogs have individual needs and preferences too. Food enrichment toys and enrichment activities need to be tailored for the individual dog. |
| Keep mealtimes calm and safe. Always feed separately from resident pets. Everyone gets his own rations, no need to scarf it down or resource guard. Pick up food bowls and food toys when finished. | Feeding dogs together, even if there is no aggression over food. Avoid tossing treats. If you need to deliver treats with dogs near each other, separate the dogs by hand delivering treats an arm span apart. |
| Provide comfort/relief if the new dog is anxious. Easing anxiety is not rewarding bad behavior. Comfort may be giving the dog space and/or time, giving the dog the option to opt out (grooming, going for a walk, meeting a new dog/person) or petting. Do keep a calm and confident demeanor – dogs are pros at reading our body language. Video: Why comforting your dog isn’t working (Dogkind) | Using repeated exposure or correcting a dog for anxious behaviors. A “just get over it” approach continuing to expose the dog to triggers (over their threshold) can make anxiety worse and degrade trust. NEVER scold or correct a dog who is anxious as you’ll make the problem worse (scary thing + punishment = more fear). Video: “Just give it time.” Will your fearful dog get better with time? (Dogkind) |
| Begin training by making positive associations. Be generous with treats when the dog does things you like. You’ll get more of the behavior that you reward! This is a great way to gently sculpt the dog’s behavior without overwhelming him. Much can be accomplished with this simple technique. More: Behavior & Training information is available in this guide. | Jumping into formal training. Keep expectations low. This isn’t the time to teach sit, down, come, stay. His brain is overwhelmed processing his new environment. Hold off on using verbal cues – he’s not likely to understand and it may only create frustration. |
| Spend time observing him. Remove stressors, add things that spark joy. | Expecting too much of him. Adjust your expectations instead of requiring him to do things he’s not capable of right now. |
Phase 2 – Settling In
When your dog is sleeping, eating and drinking normally, jump-startle responses are infrequent, and he is more relaxed around you and other household members, he is beginning to settle in.
Now you can slowly begin expanding his world. Create positive experiences for him – at his pace. This means watching his body language for clues about how he might be feeling, and adjusting activities and pace accordingly.
Dogs learn primarily by association and consequence, and we control all the stuff in his environment. It’s up to us to create positive connections, as that will play a big role in how he sees his world going forward.
Some examples:
- Clink of a bowl means dinnertime – happy association!
- Picking up the nail clippers or going to the bathtub – unhappy association (for many dogs!)
- Sitting earns a treat – happy consequence!
- Jumping up gets a knee in the chest – scary/painful consequence!
Slowly Expanding Their World
Every dog will be unique in how readily they will embrace new things in their world. Err on the side of going slow – slower than you think. You may not realize that the dog was actually stressed until you see what the dog is like a couple of weeks later.
Every dog comes with his or her own “life toolkit;” survival and coping skills, default behaviors to counter fear or uncertainty, and a certain amount of resilience. This varies from dog to dog, and only over time will you learn what your foster dog carries in his little bags.
The graphic below shows an example of slowly expanding the dog’s world. Keep in mind that this will look different for each dog. One dog may sail through the levels while another may need to go much slower and in much smaller increments.
At each level, assess the dog’s behavior and body language. Keep in mind that is about meeting his needs and not reaching your 10,000 steps a day exercise goal. Slow down and let him sniff.
Proceed to the next level when:
- The dog’s body language is relaxed.
- The dog can focus attention on you when you say his name (or “pup-pup-pup”).
- The dog is able to take and eat treats. If the dog will usually eat a high value treat, but now won’t, that’s an indication of being over threshold. If a dog is grabbier than normal when taking a treat, that’s another indicator of being over threshold.
Go back a level if the dog shows signs of stress – tension in their body, hyper-vigilance, not taking treats or taking them with a hard mouth. Spend some time at an easier level if the dog has been stressed enough to need more decompression time. Don’t expect progress to be linear; two steps forward and one step back is not uncommon.
The above example was for exploring new areas, but it applies to other experiences as well.
Example: Exploring New Areas
If the dog is comfortable in your home and yard, try going in the front yard. Let the dog sniff and explore. Toss some treats for a treasure hunt. Let the dog take in the new environment at his pace.
Build to walking across the street to get the mail, or a couple of houses away, to walking down the block and back.
Walking a routine route may be boring to you, but it controls the number of new things that the dog needs to process. The smells and sounds may be new even if the sights are not, and this changes from day to day.
For some dogs, this may take a couple of weeks. For others, getting to “longer walks” will take months.
Capturing
Capturing is simply noticing the dog doing a behavior you like, and immediately rewarding him for doing that behavior. The more consistently you reward behaviors you like, the more likely you will see those behaviors repeated. This is a very effective method of training.
A great deal of training can be accomplished by being keen observers, having treats at the ready, and being mindful that all of our interactions with our dogs are training – for better or worse!
Desensitization and Counterconditioning
Desensitization and counterconditioning are used to change behavior when the dog is fearful or anxious about something, such as meeting new people.
The goal is to change the way the dog feels about something (a trigger) rather than to perform a particular behavior. He sees the THING, and treats appear. The thing can be anything that the dog finds scary or concerning – or even just something that is new to him. This pairing eventually changes the emotion he feels for the thing, and consequently, the behavior changes as well.
Timing matters! The thing must appear before the treats. The sequence is important because if the treat (or rattling the bag) comes first, the reward becomes the predictor of the scary thing, and a negative association is made to it. We need food for reward-based training, so it’s important to preserve its value.
The dog doesn’t need to behave in a particular way; the thing appears and he gets treats regardless of his behavior. Counterconditioning is about making a positive connection between something the dog likes and something he doesn’t, not about his actions.
Desensitization is exposing the dog to a trigger starting at a low level and gradually increasing the intensity of the trigger. Exposure is paired with a reward. A dog who lunges and barks at other dogs on leash (leash reactivity) may start by seeing dogs at a significant distance. Intensity can be controlled in other ways too. A vacuum without the carpet attachment is quieter. Contrast and sound can be adjusted on a television. The goal is to expose him to the trigger at a low enough level of intensity that he stays under threshold.
Exercise and Enrichment
As the dog transitions from the initial “survival” phase of decompression, exercise and enrichment become increasingly important. Physical and mental exercise, play, sniffing, licking, chewing, digging, chasing, hunting, etc. are all normal things that dogs do. Providing appropriate outlets for a dog to do the doggie things that he finds rewarding is essential for his well being and will help to minimize behaviors that we may find objectionable.
Exercise is a key component of enrichment. Strive for a balance – high and low intensity physical exercise and high and low intensity mental exercise. Note that “high” and “low” will vary for an individual dog’s needs. A senior dog’s physical exercise needs are much different from a young adult dog. Mental exercise is powerful for helping meet overall enrichment needs, so don’t overlook or underestimate activities that work the dog’s brain. A slow sniffy stroll may result in a calmer dog than going on a three mile walk.
While the goal of exercise and enrichment isn’t to tire the dog, meeting his innate needs in these ways will result in a more relaxed dog, and this will make your life easier, too!
Walking is a typical “go to” for exercising dogs, but there are many other options. If walking is stressful for your dog (or you!), then skip it and meet the need some other way.
- Video: Alternatives to Walking your Fearful or Reactive Dog (Dogkind)
- Thinking Beyond Dog Walks (Lizzy and the Good Dog People)
For more information, see Enrichment, Dog Play and Playing with Your Dog.
Phase 3 – Feeling At Home
At this stage your new dog is comfortable in your home and with the routine. He is largely through the decompression process. He participates in household activities he enjoys such as going on walks, playing in the yard and snuggling.
His true personality is showing. He may have calmed down from when he first arrived, or his real nature may have emerged and he is now more curious, exploratory, or even mischievous – this is a good thing!
You have learned his likes and dislikes and what he needs to thrive.