Dynamic Dog Assessment
Looking for pain or discomfort, a Dynamic Dog Assessment is a detailed review of your dog's behaviour, habits, patterns, daily activities, gait and movement
"the bridge between you and your vet"
Have you been doing loads of training with your shouty-barky dog?
Are you stuck, not making any progress?
Puzzled and confused?
Then it's time to do things differently.
- Take your foot off the gas and stop with the training for a minute.
- We need to look under the hood to find out what's really going on.
This is a H3 heading
This is a H3 heading
Did you know that dogs don’t show pain until they’ve reached 6 or 7 out of 10 on the pain scale?
That’s the point at which you or I would need morphine.
Yes, you read that right - dogs will only limp when it hurts so much that ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine put together wouldn’t touch the equivalent pain in a human.
What they do instead, is:
- Make adjustments to the way they move their bodies
- Avoid doing things that hurt
- Lash out at anything (dog/human/other) that they feel might hurt them
Bertie doesn’t have to be full-on limping to be in discomfort.
- Adjustments might look like stiff back legs as Bertie avoids bending at the knees, or a slight lean to one side to offload weight from a sore limb.
- Avoidance might look like not wanting to jump in or out of the car, or waiting until Bertie is sure that his caregiver is staying downstairs before following.
- Defensiveness might look like growling when he’s on the bed with his caregiver, who then moves. Or it might look like barking, lunging or snapping at dogs that go to sniff his bum.
But Bertie runs around the park with his best mate Spot, and he bounces around like a puppy, so he can’t be in pain, right?
Well, kind of. Adrenaline is an excellent painkiller, and at that precise moment, Bertie might not feel pain.
But later, when the need to chase and bounce has gone, that discomfort will be back with a vengeance.
You know the way that something can bother you during the night, but not during the day when you're distracted? Or the way that those restless legs make you need to move? It's just like that.
But what if the vet says that my dog isn’t in pain?
It’s incredibly difficult for vets to identify pain in a veterinary setting.
Top UK veterinary pain specialist Gwen Covey-Crump states that
and Sarah Heath, lecturer in Behavioural Medicine at Liverpool University School of Veterinary Science, has said that
“it is virtually impossible to detect chronic pain in a veterinary clinic consult room”.
My own dog Mickle is a classic example.
Just before his 4th birthday, he sustained a major injury that required surgery, and yet, Mickle let our vet move, pull and push all of his legs, toes and his back, and wouldn't tell him that his left hind leg hurt, even though the tendon running over the back of his hock - the one that's in charge of his toes - was repeatedly dislocating both ways.
There are of course many, many, more ways that our dogs are trying to tell us that they’re hurting.
If your dog has behavioural issues that are not being resolved using kind, reward-based techniques, then pain or discomfort must be considered.
"But how can I not have known?"
This is incredibly difficult for us human caregivers! That our dogs have been hurting for so long, and we didn’t know? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
And yet, if we want to do the very best for our dogs, then think about it we must.
What you get in a Dynamic Dog Assessment with Stephie, a certified behaviourist:
- We start with a 90-minute consultation where we talk about your dog's life, behaviour, likes and dislikes. This is where we begin the detective trail, and I’ll drop in behavioural hints and tips as they crop up.
- Analysis of all of your veterinary records.
- Full analysis of your dog's posture and movement through video and photos.
- A written report, in veterinary language, highlighting my detailed observations for your vet.
- A video report highlighting my findings for your vet.
- A walkthrough of the reports for YOU, explaining everything in plain English.
- Coaching and hand-holding through your veterinary appointments.
- Follow up with your veterinary team if required.
CERTIFICATIONS
Testimonials
KATI AND TANO
I highly recommend The Shouty-barky Dog Lady - Stephie Guy!
Consulting with Stephie has had a huge impact on our lives.
Firstly, we had one-to-one consultations, which reassured me that I am on the right path to resolve the reactivity of my dog, and I have learned some subtle but very important changes to help my canine companion’s daily struggles.
I felt that Stephie fully understands the problems I faced as the guardian of a reactive dog, and she had solutions to offer, which were all effective and based on positive reinforcement and respect.
While we had already started to work together, I received a letter from the local police, that my dog has been reported as “aggressive” to the local police. Even though he has never bitten anyone, he would have to pass an exam demonstrating that he is not reactive, with very grave consequences in case we failed.
Stephie supported me throughout these incredibly stressful times, and she very quickly conducted a thorough gait analysis, which revealed that Tano is fear-reactive because he is in pain.
She worked closely together with my vet/behaviourist to start his medication and her subsequent letter and report, which were sent to the authorities, were instrumental in a surprising result: the police cancelled our obligation to take the exam.
It was a great reminder for me that reactive dogs may just be in pain: it is so important to check the underlying reason!
We started his medication and we are learning cooperative care.
We will take the recommended medical tests as soon as possible and keep working on desensitizing him.
He has already made an amazing progress: our lives have become so much more peaceful and stress free.
I am so grateful to Stephie for her help!!!
CLAIRE AND ROBIN
Stephie is brilliant – I highly recommend.
I contacted Stephie because I was convinced there was something more going on with my dog Robin than my vet had told me.
They had diagnosed a touch of arthritis in his knees and prescribed pain relief but there was not much improvement in his behaviour and was still over reacting to things and whilst we were doing a lot of training on this we had come to a standstill with progress especially with his noise sensitivity.
I had noticed Robin’s coat pattern had changed quite a bit and I knew this could be an indication of underlying problems but wanted more clarification on it.
We had a thorough consultation with Stephie and even though we had made exercise mistakes when Robin was younger Stephie was totally understanding and non-judgemental throughout.
After sending over our videos and pictures for analysis we had another call on zoom where she went through all her findings and explaining all the technical talk so that I could understand it better and even slowed the videos down so I could clearly see the issues that were being shown.
It all made perfect sense – so much so, that I can now see what she can straight away how Robin is making adjustments in his body to avoid feeling more pain.
Everything has been sent over to my vet and they have changed his pain relief and are now looking into having further treatments to help him.
BEA AND ANGELO
I want to share my experience and how a Dynamic Dog Assessment with Stephie has helped my journey with my Alaskan Malamute, Angelo.
Angelo had been diagnosed with health issues which we manage well and he is stable.
However, I have always suspected he is in pain. He had numerous tests, X-rays and a brain MRI scan in the past with all normal results.
He is a happy dog but it still constantly nagged at me.
He is reactive in certain situations and I always a factor was he felt vulnerable and protective over himself.
We were lucky to be accepted for Angelo to be a case study for Stephie as part of her Dynamic Dog practitioner training. I jumped at the opportunity as it locates pain and discomfort in dogs using specific and measurable techniques.
It was all done remotely via consultations (so completely stress free for Angelo) and by sending pictures and videos of him in all aspects of his day to day life.
All very gentle and at Angelo's pace. Angelo struggles with any form of physical examination so this was perfect for us.
Stephie had a relaxed initial consultation with us and subsequently looked at footage from the ground up of Angelo's entire body.
She gave us a final report of the findings. This gave us specific and in-depth knowledge of the key areas. This included diagrams and photos highlighting these areas.
Stephie has such empathy and a kind, calm demeanour and was so understanding.
She kept in touch through the whole process and adapted some of the exercises to suit Angelo and or to look at particular areas.
Stephie confirmed he does live with considerable pain every day and is without doubt a huge factor in his reactivity.
We are now on a new path with this knowledge and have appointments with our routine vet and a holistic vet to find ways to help Angelo going forward.
I cannot recommend Stephie highly enough. This information will be positively life changing for us.
