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Behavioral and physiological parameters help assess canine negative and positive affective states. This section focuses on the former, particularly multi‐modal behavior patterns relevant for dog welfare and well‐being both in and out of the shelter.

Despite the good intentions of people and organizations, shelters are awash in stressors. While adaptive in that the stress response and fear prompt physiological and behavioral changes when something is perceived as frightening or indicative of danger (Boissy 1995), stressors (or the perception of such) can also be unrelenting. Persistent or chronic stress challenge short‐ and long‐term well‐being, and studies identify relationships between stress and a decrease in immune function (Glaser and Kiecolt‐Glaser 2005), a decrease in lifespan (Dreschel 2010), and an increase in arousal, fear, and aggression (Dreschel and Granger 2005).

Stress‐related behaviors summarized by Mariti et al. (2012) overlap with fear, anxiety, conflict, or appeasement. Snout/lip licking, yawning, whining, and panting are oral behaviors. Dogs may avoid eye contact, look away, or have their ears back. Trembling and body shaking are often indicators of high psychological stress and could be accompanied by a lowered body posture, cowering, and hiding. Dogs paw‐lift in both social and asocial contexts, when alone and distressed, and also during social (inter‐ or intraspecific) conflict, confusion, or fear (e.g., of punishment). Periods of continual barking, whining, and howling suggest frustration or distress, although vocalization could also be socially mediated and serve other functions. Dogs with either low or high activity should be monitored for additional behaviors of anxiety. Dogs may also be excessive or under‐consumers of food and water. Individual differences are common, and behaviors presented can be affected by stressor type, such as social or non‐social context, as well as severity and duration. Overt indicators such as trembling and whining may be more recognizable than subtle behaviors, for example, turning away, yawning, and licking (Mariti et al. 2012).

Stress‐related, fear, and aggressive behaviors can be connected. If pressed, dogs exhibiting fearful postures may freeze, continue to withdraw, flip onto their backs in a display of passive submission, or display a defensive attack. Defensive aggression differs from an offensive display in that the defensive dog’s posture is pulled back, with ears back and tail tucked. Ultimately, the dog is attempting to increase distance from the fear‐inducing stimulus but may come forward to bite prior to retreating. Alternatively, dogs displaying more offensive aggression may lean forward with a fixed stare, raised tail, and stiff or frozen body and present a “hard eye” with a closed mouth or offensive pucker, in a sense making themselves appear bigger.

Dog bites to people can occur in any context where dogs and humans overlap, such as situations where resources are present (like food or toys), on private property, in play, and during seemingly “normal” interactions (like petting or being in a dog’s presence), as well as in occupational contexts such as those involving entering the dog’s home environment, or veterinary or shelter work, among others. People are often familiar with the dog who bit them, and young children, who are often bitten on the face or upper body, constitute a large number of those bitten (Reisner et al. 2011). Breed, neuter status, age, and sex are often explored as contributory factors to bites, yet relationships between these factors and bites are not always clear and should be interpreted cautiously (Newman et al. 2017). Instead, the conditions under which a dog is reared, kept, or managed—such as lacking socialization experience or being left unsupervised with children—could increase bite risk. A UK survey found that numerous factors influence the presence of aggressive displays, and a dog who shows aggressive behavior in one context, such as outside the home, might not do so in another context, such as in the home (Casey et al. 2014). Dogs cannot be characterized as universally “safe” or universally “dangerous,” as people might like.

Human behavior prior to a bite is an important piece of the puzzle. Owczarczak‐Garstecka et al. (2018) analyzed dozens of bites from YouTube videos and found that human contact‐related behaviors increased approximately 20 seconds prior to the bite. Petting, restraining, and “standing over” the dog were observed frequently. On the dog’s part, behaviors such as low body position, head turning, and panting, as well as staring and stiffening, increased approximately 30 seconds prior to the bite. These findings are valuable: they suggest that bites are not “coming out of nowhere,” highlight the value of the “ladder of aggression” theory (Shepherd 2009), and suggest that people could notice dog signals and respond in turn. The ladder of aggression suggests that dog responses to threatening or stressful stimuli (social, environmental, or other) tend to be graded. A dog is apt to yawn, lick, look away, or move away before growling, snapping, or biting. These cues, proceeding from subtle to overt, aim to increase distance, and while not all dogs will exhibit all signals, the ladder concept provides a general or average progression. These subtle behaviors demand attention because if ignored, dogs might learn that these behaviors are ineffectual and develop a lower threshold for more overt distance‐increasing indicators, like growling, barking, baring teeth, lunging, and even biting.

Abnormal behaviors are also present in captive environments and suggest a negative affective state. While taken from the normal repertoire of the species, these behaviors are inappropriate in terms of the manner and context in which they are performed. They can be repetitive, unvarying, and seemingly without immediate goal or function (Mason 1991), or they can be goal directed but abnormally repeated or performed outside typical contexts (Dodman et al. 2010). Abnormal repetitive behaviors (ARBs) manifest differently between species, and in dogs, pacing, spinning or tail chasing, and bouncing off the wall are common. Dogs also chase shadows and perform oral motor patterns like enclosure biting, excessive licking, excessive drinking (polydipsia), flank sucking, feet chewing, snapping at the air (fly snapping), and/or excessive grooming. Studies have also found an increased incidence of certain ARBs in particular breeds, such as flank sucking in Dobermans, tail chasing in bull terriers, and shadow/light chasing in herding breeds (Tynes and Sinn 2014).

While ARBs can develop as a coping mechanism to poor environments, they can persist even after environmental improvement and even be present in highly enriched settings (Garner 2005). In poor environments, ARBs could offer a sort of “do‐it‐yourself” enrichment, and non‐stereotyping individuals in poor environments could be in a worse state than stereotyping individuals (Mason and Latham 2004). Factors such as individual coping styles and kennel space could affect ARB presentation (Protopopova 2016). While ARBs could perseverate because of reinforcement, they are suggestive of an experience of chronic rather than acute stress, at some point (Polgár et al. 2019).

Overly generalized treatment plans are typically not recommended. Sequential behavior analysis of shelter dogs performing any form of ARB found that sequences ranged from highly repetitive to quite variable, suggesting ARBs necessitate personalized care strategies (Loftus et al. 2018). Abnormal behaviors can vary in underlying motivation and triggers (Hall et al. 2015), and thwarting behaviors could increase distress or the frequency of new deleterious behaviors. Underlying medical conditions or pain should also be considered.

Similar motor patterns can appear in both positive and negative affective contexts (Csoltova and Mehinagic 2020). For example, “nose lick” may appear in both frustration and positive anticipation contexts (Caeiro et al. 2017; Bremhorst et al. 2019). With this in mind, context and total motor patterns, as opposed to a single behavior in isolation, contribute to meaning. Motor patterns in line with wanting, seeking, or liking are suggestive of positive affect states (Yeates and Main 2008).

Young dogs may spend up to one‐third of their awake life in object, social, or locomotor (movement) play; unlike most mammals, dogs continue playing regularly in adulthood (Horowitz 2002). Dogs not only play with one another but readily and often with humans and even other species. Since play appears to be pleasurable, it might seem non‐functional, but in fact it is an integral part of dog social and physical development (Rooney and Bradshaw 2014). Cooperative behaviors such as turn taking and self‐handicapping appear in social play, demonstrating that dogs are gauging their play partner's size and skill level (Horowitz 2009b). While play uses many behaviors that would be considered aggressive in other contexts—biting, jumping on, tackling, chasing—within play the intensity of the behaviors is moderated; rarely does play turn into aggression. Recognizing and giving space for play is important: play is not only rewarding for the dog and part of normal social life, it can be used as a reward in training, is suggestive of good welfare, and is thought to improve health and well‐being (Sommerville et al. 2017). See Chapter 13 for information on play and playgroups in shelter dogs.