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We have the lessons clustered into weeks, but don’t be put off by that if you need to take more time. It’s very common to spend 2-3 weeks on each “week” of lessons from here.

Week 1: What is Frustration?

• Dictionary Definition
• Human examples
• What Does Frustration Look Like in Dogs
• How Do I Know Whether It’s Frustration or Fear? Does it Matter?
• Why is My Dog Doing This?
• Course Overview
• Training: Practice BAT Leash Skills
• Training: On Switch / Off Switch

“DICTIONARY” DEFINITIONS

Here’s how the Google dictionary defines frustration. It is both a feeling and the event that causes that feeling.

frus·tra·tion  frəˈstrāSHən/  noun

1. the feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of inability to change or achieve something. Example: “I sometimes feel like screaming with frustration.”
2. an event or circumstance that causes one to have a feeling of frustration. Plural noun: frustrations. Example: “the inherent frustrations of assembly line work.”

I would add that we feel more frustration when there’s something we expect to be able to achieve or change, and yet it does not work. While we can’t say that dogs feel frustration in the same way that we do, we do see their behavior change in ways that are similar to humans when they are “unable to achieve something,” i.e., when their behavior does not have the expected effect. Regardless of species, frustration is definitely an aversive emotional state.

Bean’s kick is a sign of frustration. Sneezing is another common behavior.

I found this Wikipedia article on frustration to be interesting. Some of it can’t really be applied to dogs, particularly since we can’t talk with them about it, but this part resonated with me:

“Frustration can be considered a problem–response behavior, and can have a number of effects, depending on the mental health of the individual. In positive cases, this frustration will build until a level that is too great for the individual to contend with, and thus produce action directed at solving the inherent problem. In negative cases, however, the individual may perceive the source of frustration to be outside of their control, and thus the frustration will continue to build, leading eventually to further problematic behavior (e.g. violent reaction).”

And finally, I’d also like to share these definitions compiled by Ken Ramirez in the glossary of his book, Animal Training: Successful Animal Management Through Positive Reinforcement.

Frustration:

• Emotional behavior prompted by the thwarting or interruption of goal seeking activity.
• A term used in two ways. In one sense, frustration refers to any interference with the satisfaction of a motive. In another sense, frustration refers to the consequences or interval state resulting from such interferences with goal directed behavior.

HUMAN EXAMPLES

Technology can definitely lead to frustration. For example, you may have experienced a learning curve for this site, or when posting videos to YouTube. Whether that process is frustrating or not depends, in large part, on how effective your behavior is—i.e., whether what you try works as you expect. If you are familiar with YouTube and can easily upload your files and change settings, you won’t feel much frustration. If YouTube changes the process or you haven’t learned how to use it yet, there’s bound to be some frustration.

Here’s another tech example. I read through a review of a new smartphone recently. Frustration is on my mind, because of this course, and the person’s frustration jumped right out at me. If our dogs could share their experiences, it might be something similar. Here’s what happened with the phone purchase. First, the user had trouble installing applications, but was eventually successful. I’ll highlight some points in the review below.

I used the apps I was able to install, and I found myself befuddled a number of times. There’s no software back button support. Some apps have a working back button within them, but not all, and there were times I felt trapped in whatever I was using, like Gretel after the breadcrumbs were eaten.

Swiping was supposed to help, as was flicking your wrist, but the responses were inconsistent. I thought I was fumbly and inept until I shared my phone with an IT pro and he also found that there were times where he’d flick his wrist 3 or 4 times without success. You’d feel so frustrated you’d want to start shaking it uncontrollably, then fling it into the wall. I loved catching him in those moments, our frustration shared. Navigation that was effortless on an android tablet became convoluted and difficult. MANY things that felt effortless on a full blown android were obscured or disabled.

A phase swirled in my head, “you can’t get there from here.”

That review is clearly full of frustration. As I tried to get from Copenhagen to Madrid yesterday in the middle of a pilot strike, I have to admit that I had a complete frustration meltdown. Between the lost luggage, rerouting to different airlines and cities, and endless bureaucracy, my patience was running thin.

If I were a dog, I’d definitely have started biting at my leash.

Having already written part of this lesson, the line “You can’t get there from here” swirled in my head, too.

When behavior fails to achieve a desired response at the usual rate, there is frustration.

Back to the phone, frustration would have been avoided if the person had no expectations of being able to do certain things on the phone, or if the swiping had worked (i.e., the behavior had been effective). If it was clearly a gamble, that one just has to swipe a few times and it will work about every other time, then that would reduce the frustration. But the expectation was that it should have worked consistently. I should have been able to quickly get from Copenhagen to Madrid with my luggage, but I could not. Enter frustration.

Frustration is reduced when we have alternate behavior that’s likely to work. Say you are in the shower and it starts to get cold. You change the setting and even colder water comes out. You quickly realize you’ve made a mistake and you turn the hot water tap instead, setting the temperature back to what you want. It’s a bit frustrating, but it’s still under your control. Unless you have had a bad morning already or have low impulse control for some other reason, you’re probably not going to flip out when you just turned the wrong tap. Your behavior didn’t work as expected, at first, but it you still have control.

On the other hand, if you are in a shower in a hotel and can’t figure out how to warm up the freezing water, no matter what you try, it’s a lot more frustrating.

Think about some of the times that your dog melts down in frustration. Does it seem a bit like the shower scenario? Something was supposed to work and now it doesn’t?

WHAT DOES FRUSTRATION LOOK LIKE IN DOGS?

Behavior evolved to have an effect. That’s the whole point of behavior. It helps you get what you need or want and avoid everything else. Like people, dogs respond in many ways when their behavior is not effective. A tiny frustration occurs when he has another behavior that is likely to work and so he just calmly does that instead. Sit doesn’t get the treat, so he lies down and is reinforced. That dog is able to cope with the frustration.

The frustration that’s problematic is when the dog does not have another behavior that’s likely to work, either, and arousal spins out of control.

For example, when a dog tries to walk forward toward another dog and he’s unable to move, that behavior is “on extinction” meaning that it’s not being reinforced. The dog may try harder to pull forward (“extinction burst” or “invigoration”), whine, bark, jump, even turn around and snap at the handler. If any of those things work, that behavior becomes more likely.

When he tries to greet using a wiggling body and the behavior is ignored, he may jump up into the person’s face. When he is given one too many cues in a behavior chain without reinforcement, the dog shows frustration. The consequences aren’t as expected. The reinforcement was under the dog’s control in the past and then during this exercise, it wasn’t. Some dogs will calmly push through this, while others will shut down, whine or bark at the handler.

Examples of behavior in response to frustration:

• whining
• avoidance of trainer who is not ‘paying’ as expected during extinction trials (turn away, walking away, sniffing, lying down)
• barking at the trainer
• barking at the goal (treat pouch, squirrel in tree, other dog, etc.) Higher pitched barking at other dogs (‘puppy bark’).
• rapid breathing
• exaggerated form of previous behavior
• biting at the leash
• ‘guessing’ at cues (inconsistent response)
• circus dog (dog throws out random behavior to see if any will be reinforced)

Some frustration is just part of life and we do want to help dogs show patience and resilience in the face of frustration. But our work with dogs should maximize reinforcement and limit the amount of frustration they experience. I don’t mean it necessarily maximizes reinforcement from us. I mean that the dog’s behavior works as expected (or better). “Errorless learning” is more efficient and it also avoids increasing arousal.

It also avoids triggering the RAGE system in the brain. Thinking of the affective brain as being composed of different systems is discussed in Jaak Panksepp’s book, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. Click here for a description of that system and what happens in the mammalian brain when this system is lit up.

Here’s a nice excerpt from that article:

Regarding the kinds of stimuli that can access RAGE circuitry, Panksepp points to such things as body surface irritation or when one does not receive an expected reward. He explains that the most common triggers of rage “are the irritations and frustrations that arise from events that restrict freedom of action or access to resources.” He points out that “a human baby typically becomes enraged if its freedom of action is restricted simply by holding its arms to its sides.” Activation of RAGE circuits is “accompanied by an invigoration of the musculature, with corresponding increases in autonomic indices such as heart rate, blood pressure, and muscular blood flow.” According to Panksepp, the phrase “getting hot under the collar,” is accurate in that body temperature also increases during rage.

IS IT FRUSTRATION OR FEAR? DOES IT MATTER?

Many dogs have a combination of avoidance and attraction to other dogs. If they are off leash, they rush over frantically and then fall over themselves getting as small as possible. Or they run up to within a few feet and then stop, unwilling to go closer. When the dog is on leash, it looks like he really wants to get over there, but in fact, he’d really rather not. Using Panksepp’s terminology, the RAGE and FEAR systems may both be activated.

The good news is that BAT and the other work we’re doing here are useful for dogs in general. Both fear and frustration are aversive states and we want to help the dog not have to experience either very much (although we’d especially want to avoid much fear).

That said, if the dog is only barking from frustration, it’s going to be a lot easier to help bring things around than if the dog is also afraid. Once he has an effective way to get what he wants, the problem is solved. If the behavior is more emotionally driven, it’s still powerful for the dog to learn that his behavior is effective, but it takes time to build trust in other dogs, people, etc.

It’s important to not label your dog’s behavior as only frustration or fear or whatever else. Look at the dog you have in that moment. Watch for signs of distress and help him keep his arousal level low.

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