The What & Why of Behavior Assessments
By: Stephanie Keesey-Phelan, Ph.D., BCBA, CCUI, FFCP
One of our most requested services is what we offer for those who are struggling with their dogs’ behaviors: the Intensive Behavior Program and the Behavior Jumpstart. One thing that makes both these programs unique is our emphasis on assessment as the first step before we start any kind of training work with our clients. Potential clients often ask us, “Why can’t we just get started with training?” Or “My dog is really struggling, we need to make changes right away, why should we do an assessment?”
Why start with a behavioral assessment?
The short answer to this question is that every dog, just like every person, is unique, and as a result, a one-size-fits-all approach is less likely to be successful. Consider a trip to the dentist with a toothache. When you sit down in the dentist’s chair, your (good!) dentist is not going to immediately start pulling teeth or filling cavities. Most likely, they will ask you some questions, possibly take x-rays, and do a physical exam. When they have identified the problem, they will then begin to treat it or refer you to someone who can if it is a problem outside of their scope. This analogy applies to our behavioral consultation services for dogs and their people.
While it’s true that many dogs bark in order to get their person’s attention, chew because they’re bored, or lunge on leash because they want to say hi to another dog, this will not always be the case. Dogs also bark because a cat is nearby but out of reach, chew because they are experiencing separation-related anxiety, or lunge on leash because they want the other dog to move away. And these are just a few examples! Just like there are many reasons for which humans do the things they do, we do not all have the same learning history, genetics, or motivations. There are many reasons for which dogs do the things they do and this relates to the “function” of their behaviors and this is one thing (among many) that we are analyzing when we conduct an assessment for a new client.
There are a number of studies within the behavior analytic literature that show us that interventions for challenging behaviors that are based on the function are more effective than those that are not (see references below). We know when clients come to us for help with their dog’s challenging behaviors that these challenges are stressful both for their dogs and for anyone in the family or dog’s community who interact with the dog. We want to get our clients off to a strong start with the most effective possible treatments.
Although understanding the function of a dog’s behavior is a cornerstone of our assessment process, this isn’t the only thing we will spend time looking at. Consider this example: can you remember a time that you snapped at a family member? If asked to recall it, you might start by describing that the incident happened when they reminded you, for the third time that week, that it was your turn to take out the trash. At the end of your rope, you yelled at them. But I suspect your story might not end there. You might describe how you had a big deadline coming up at work and you weren’t getting much sleep; that you locked yourself out of the car earlier in the day, missing your lunch break. You were hungry, tired, and frustrated. Plus, the new system for whose turn it was to take out the trash was only just implemented in the last week and couldn’t your family member see that you were not ignoring the overflowing trash bin on purpose? Couldn’t they see how stressed you were and help you out by taking out the trash this one time?
“Interventions for challenging behaviors that are based on the function are more effective than those that are not. We know when clients come to us for help with their dog’s challenging behaviors that these challenges are stressful both for their dogs and for anyone in the family or dog’s community who interact with the dog. We want to get our clients off to a strong start with the most effective possible treatments. ”
If you are an angel and have never snapped at anyone, fill in your own example about a time when you think you may have overreacted to something that wouldn’t usually bother you. Or, maybe something had been bothering you but no one was listening and finally it became too much; your behaviors then escalated as a result.
Maybe this is the first time that you snapped at someone in over a year (you unicorn person you!).Your family member might think it would be wonderful if we had a quick solution to fix the problem of you snapping at them such that we wouldn’t see this behavior ever again, even once was too much. But even if that were possible (and it’s not!), would that really be ethical given what we know about the context of your snapping?
They aren’t giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time
When clients come to us with a dog who is experiencing challenges, we want to do the dog and the whole family the service of taking a close, comprehensive look at what’s going on. We consider the full context in which the challenges are happening so that we can capture all of the relevant components in our treatment plan. What are these relevant components? Let’s look at humans again as a starting point. When you snapped at your family member, we learned that, 1) your needs were not fully met - you hadn’t been sleeping much due to a deadline at work and you skipped lunch and were hungry; 2) you experienced a frustrating event earlier in the day when you locked yourself out of the car; 3) the current taking-out-the-trash system was new and you hadn’t yet adjusted to this schedule and corresponding expectations; and 4) your family member asked you to take out the trash for a third time which was what happened immediately before you snapped. Was it great for your family member (or you for that matter) that you snapped? No, but we can see from all this context that you weren’t trying to give your family member a hard time, you were having a hard time yourself.
With a dog experiencing challenges, we come to the situation from the same perspective. Your dog is having a hard time and we want to know what might be contributing. We’ll consider, 1) Are your dog’s doggie needs being met? 2) What is your dog’s lifestyle like in general? Has anything changed recently? 3) What are your expectations for your dog in the challenging context? Are these fair expectations at this point in time? And 4) what is immediately triggering the challenges you’re encountering with your dog.
Do we understand what our dog is saying?
In addition to all the information gathering I’ve described above, we’ll also do some work decoding dog body language and making sure that our clients are comfortable and fluent doing so. We will be hard-pressed to help a dog whose body language we can’t read or understand. To that end, for clients for whom this is new, we’ll spend time identifying some of the more subtle behaviors that their dog engages in and what they might mean.
How do you even gather all of this information?
There are lots of strategies we employ to collect all of the contextual and background information that we need to design a well-rounded treatment plan. One of the big ones is data collection. This may sound intimidating, but we try to take the guesswork out of it. Data collection in this context simply means we’ll ask you to observe your dog and jot down some information about what you see. There are tons of different ways to do this and we work with each client to design a data collection system that will be easiest and work best for them. This might involve writing down some notes on a calendar, using an app on a phone, printing out a data sheet and recording information there, or keeping a journal of what you observe. As with everything we do, we know that the same options don’t work for all people so we will individualize this process.
This sounds like a lot…
It is a lot! But the good news is that at DBI, we are well-versed in the most efficient ways to gather information and collect data. We will design an assessment that focuses on what is important and relevant for you and your dog. This time spent at the outset is well-worth it when it comes to creating a training plan that will work and be doable for all involved.
So you do all this assessment up front, then what?
Once the assessment portion of our program is complete, we’ll create a holistic treatment plan for you and your dog. The plan will include three main components:
Management and prevention strategies as appropriate
Enrichment recommendations to ensure your dog’s needs are being met
A training plan that will address what skills we can teach your dog to support them in your environment.
How will this look? You guessed it! There’s no one answer because although these components are consistent across our behavior programs, what is included in each will be tailored to the specific dog and family. Once we have the plan ready to go, then we’re off to the races, helping you prioritize what to do first and teaching you how to implement the plan.
Regardless of whether a client goes through our Intensive Behavior Program or our Behavior Jumpstart, assessment will be a part of it. Though this process can be a bit lengthy, we have found it truly ensures that we are setting you and your dog up for the best possible success!
References
Beavers, G. A., Iwata, B. A., & Lerman, D. C. (2013). Thirty years of research on the functional analysis of problem behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 46, 1-21.
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd Edition). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.
Hanley, G. P., Iwata, B. A., & McCord, B. E. (2003). Functional analysis of problem behavior: A revew. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 36, 147-18
Melanson, I. J., Fahmie, T. A. (2023). Functional analysis of problem behavior: A 40-year review. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2023, 1-20.