When Behaviour and Health Overlap: Why I Want to Work With Your Vet.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my role as a dog behaviourist.

My background is in animal training. I spent years working in zoos, training animals for cooperative husbandry and care as well as demonstrations. Then I adopted a German Shepherd with some behavioural challenges of his own, and somewhere along the way I found myself pursuing what has become a career, vocation and, occasionally, questionable life choice in pet dog training and behaviour!

And I am still learning. I hope I always will be.

One of the difficulties with dog training and behaviour is that it remains an unregulated industry. Personally, I would love to see a clearer professional pathway, something more like veterinary nursing: recognised scientific or vocational education, assessment of practical competence, professional registration and an ongoing requirement for continuing professional development (CPD).

Instead, the world of dog training and behaviour can be rather murky.

I am currently pursuing further certification in clinical animal behaviour. Part of my motivation is simple: I want veterinary surgeons referring patients to me to have confidence in my competence.

But I also want stronger relationships with vets for another reason.

Physical health plays a part in behaviour more often than many people realise.

When a behaviour problem might not be just a behaviour problem

Sometimes there is an obvious learning history.

Your dog is attacked by another dog in the park and subsequently starts barking at unfamiliar dogs? We have a fairly obvious event to investigate.

But I'm particularly interested when a behaviour appears for the first time in adulthood, suddenly changes or becomes significantly worse without an obvious environmental explanation.

That's when I start asking more questions.

Has anything changed physically? How are their stools? Skin? Ears? Appetite? Sleep? Movement? Have they become reluctant to jump into the car? Are they suddenly less tolerant of grooming or handling?

I'm not a vet.

I've studied anatomy, physiology, health and disease as part of my science degrees, but I did not study veterinary medicine. Diagnosing and treating disease and injury is the veterinary surgeon's area of expertise.

My speciality is behaviour.

So what does a behaviourist actually look at?

One component of my assessments is something called an ABC analysis:

Antecedent → Behaviour → Consequence

In very simple terms:

What happened immediately before the behaviour?

What exactly did the dog do?

What happened immediately afterwards?

Let's use dog-dog reactivity as an example.

A dog sees another dog approaching.

He barks and lunges.

The other dog moves away.

If creating distance is valuable to that dog, barking and lunging may have successfully achieved exactly that. With repetition, that consequence can help maintain the behaviour.

But ABCs aren't the entire story.

I also want to know about the conditions under which the behaviour becomes more or less likely. Behaviour analysts might consider things such as setting events and motivating operations.

For example:

Setting event: unusually long walk and lots of repetitive ball chasing the previous day
↓
Possible biological variable: increased musculoskeletal discomfort
↓
Motivating operation: obtaining distance/avoiding interaction may become more valuable
↓
Antecedent: another dog approaches
↓
Behaviour: barking and lunging
↓
Consequence: the other dog moves away
↓
Possible function: escape/avoidance

That's a hypothesis, not a diagnosis.

I can test aspects of the behavioural hypothesis. Does changing distance alter the dog's response? What happens if we change the antecedent? Can we teach another behaviour that achieves the same outcome?

What I cannot determine is whether that dog has arthritis, hip dysplasia, a soft-tissue injury or another medical condition causing discomfort.

That's where I need your vet.

My job isn't to diagnose your dog

I may notice something about a dog's movement or gait. I may ask you to take some video for your veterinary team.

That doesn't make me a veterinary physiotherapist or a veterinary surgeon.

I'm not a nutritionist. I don't have the expertise to explain the biological processes underlying your dog's recurrent ear infections, allergies or gastrointestinal disease.

What I do know is that physical health can affect behaviour, learning and tolerance of things happening in the environment.

That means potentially relevant observations shouldn't be ignored simply because you've contacted me about a “behaviour problem”.

My job is to say:

“I've noticed this. I wonder whether it could be relevant. I'd like your vet to take a look.”

Your vet can then decide whether it warrants examination, investigation or treatment.

“But my dog doesn't look like he's in pain!”

This is something I really want to address, because people can understandably become defensive when a trainer, behaviourist, vet or physiotherapist suggests their dog might be uncomfortable.

Please don't feel bad.

Nobody is accusing you of neglecting your dog or failing to notice something obvious.

Pain isn't always a dog limping around on three legs.

A dog may still run, jump, play and participate in activities while experiencing discomfort. Behavioural changes associated with pain can also be subtle and vary considerably between individuals.

And sometimes they don't look remotely like our mental picture of a “sore dog”.

A dog experiencing discomfort might have difficulty settling or sleeping.

Another might become less tolerant of handling.

Another might appear unusually restless or active.

A dog might struggle at the groomer but seem fine elsewhere. Standing for prolonged periods, maintaining particular positions, being restrained or adjusting balance on a slippery surface could potentially alter how comfortable that situation is.

And context matters enormously.

Think about humans.

I'm certainly less patient when my knee is aching or my asthma is playing up. And — over-40s, I'm looking at you — my knees and hips definitely don't tolerate abuse the way they used to!

That doesn't mean every time I'm irritable it's because my knee hurts.

It means my physical state is one of the variables capable of changing how I respond to everything else happening around me.

Dogs aren't fundamentally exempt from that principle.

“But my vet said he's not in pain.”

That's useful information — but it doesn't mean we should stop being curious if something still doesn't add up.

Some problems are intermittent. Some occur only after particular activities. And sometimes a dog simply doesn't reproduce at the veterinary practice what you're seeing at home.

That's why collaboration is useful.

I can provide your vet with behavioural history, videos and objective observations from your dog's normal environment.

Your vet brings the medical expertise to interpret those observations alongside their clinical examination and decide whether further investigation or treatment is appropriate.

Neither of us needs to pretend to do the other's job.

And yes — I know this can mean spending more money

This is another part I don't want to gloss over.

You've contacted me and you're already paying for behaviour support. Then I tell you I'd like you to speak to your vet, which could potentially mean another consultation or investigation.

Nobody enjoys paying someone to tell them they might need to spend more money.

But I'd rather have that uncomfortable conversation than take your money for repeated training sessions while an untreated physical problem is making it unnecessarily difficult for your dog to succeed.

Finding a contributing physical factor isn't a failure.

In many ways, it's useful information.

If your vet can make your dog more comfortable, we've potentially removed one of the variables making behaviour modification harder.

Now my training has a better chance to work.

Treating pain doesn't necessarily erase the learning history

This bit is really important.

Imagine that putting on a harness has repeatedly been uncomfortable.

The dog learns:

Hand reaches towards harness → growl → person backs away.

The vet subsequently identifies and treats the source of the discomfort.

Fantastic.

But the dog's learning history hasn't magically disappeared.

The harness may still predict discomfort. Hands approaching may still trigger an established response. Growling has a history of successfully making hands move away.

That's where I come back in.

We can change the dog's experience of the situation, teach alternative behaviours, introduce greater choice and predictability, and build a new learning history.

Medical treatment and behaviour modification aren't competing explanations or competing treatments. Sometimes we need both.

So what exactly do I bring to the team?

I'm a trainer and behaviourist.

I can investigate the dog's learning history and the environmental contingencies that may be maintaining a problem behaviour.

I can teach alternative responses.

I can help with fear, frustration, arousal and skills deficits.

I can shape behaviour incredibly precisely.

I can teach a dog to participate voluntarily in handling and cooperative care.

I can help an owner build a recall gradually around the distractions their dog actually struggles with.

If a veterinary physiotherapist prescribes an exercise but the dog is performing it at approximately 900mph because FOOD!, I can help teach the slow, controlled movement needed to perform it properly.

If a groomer can't safely clip nails or remove mats, I can help teach cooperative behaviours that make future care easier.

And if a dog needs an alternative to barking and lunging to create space, I can teach that too.

But if there's a sore joint, an ear infection, gastrointestinal disease, allergies, a luxating patella or another medical problem affecting the behaviour?

I need the vet.

And even once the veterinary problem is being appropriately managed, you may still need me.

It doesn't have to be “medical or behavioural”

That's probably the biggest message I want people to take from this.

Behaviour happens in a living animal.

Sometimes the variables maintaining or influencing behaviour are in the dog's external environment.

Sometimes relevant variables are occurring inside the dog.

And sometimes there are several things happening at once.

My role is to investigate the behaviour, manipulate the variables that are appropriately within my remit, teach new skills and measure what happens.

The veterinary surgeon's role is to investigate, diagnose and treat physical health conditions.

Sometimes we may also need a veterinary physiotherapist, groomer, dog walker or another suitably qualified professional.

The best answer isn't always choosing which professional is “right”.

Sometimes the best outcomes come from professionals sharing observations, staying within their respective areas of expertise and working together for the same animal.

It takes a village.