Studying the effects of psychological trauma in animals presents some very formidable challenges, and studying such effects in fighting dogs is a perfect example.
The main difficulty in these studies is that the past histories of the dogs are rarely known to those of us studying and attempting to heal them. In many types of trauma – such as dog-fighting, inhumane puppy mill operations, and physical abuse – at the time the dogs are rescued the people who were "caring" for the dogs are now in trouble with the law, and hence not cooperative and forthcoming with the details of the dogs' living situations. (In providing us with the facts of the dogs' care they are likely to incriminate themselves.)
Thus we are left with many questions about the true nature of the trauma to each dog. Was a dog rescued from Michael Vick's property treated abusively, such as being forced to train on a treadmill to the point of exhaustion? Or beaten? Did the dog fight in one fight or dozens? In dogs rescued from a life in a puppy mill, had the breeding female been cooped up in the little cage for 3 weeks or 6 years?
Unlike in people who have endured psychological trauma where the victims can describe what happened to themselves, we can't ask the dogs what they went through. Because of this we have to use just what we know to be true: for example, that these dogs were rescued from a dog-fighting operation and some have scars indicating that they fought. Sometimes there are other clues, such as the fact that poorly socialized dogs tend to fear people and withdraw when a person approaches whereas an abused dog may fear people but still show a conflicted effort to gain human attention and affection.
In other types of psychological trauma, we may know exactly what the animals went through but then not know what their lives—and their personalities—were like before the trauma. We encountered much of this type of trauma in the animals Best Friends rescued after Hurricane Katrina. For those many unfortunate pet animals who never reunited with their human family, we were not able to learn anything about what their lives had been like before the hurricane. Studying emotional scars when we don't know what the animal was like before the traumatic incident is very difficult due to the relative inability to recognize what, if anything, of the dogs' psychological make-up was changed by the traumatic events.
Now consider these two facts together as they apply to the dogs we are working with to heal their emotional wounds:
(1) their avoidance and fear of people and surroundings have a variety of potential causes, and
(2) we don't know what happened to them prior to their rescue.
So what do we do? Do we throw up our hands and just proceed to deal with the fears without seeking the cause? Can a dog who fears people simply be treated as a case of "fear of people" without knowing what caused the fear? Does knowing the cause help us to determine the best form of treatment? And does knowing the cause of the fear allow us to give a more accurate prognosis for recovery from the emotional wounds?
Yes, knowing the cause does help on all counts. However, because of the lack of scientific studies in this area we just don't yet know how the causes and specific treatment methods best fit together. And most importantly, although the nature of these types of studies involves a near-complete lack of knowledge of the pre-trauma events that caused the emotional scars, that's no reason to not do all we can to try to figure out this puzzle of psychological trauma in animals. Because the animals can't tell us what they've gone through may mean that it will take us longer to put all the pieces together, but no matter how long it takes the effort will be worth it. This is what our studies here at Best Friends, with rescued fighting dogs as well as all other forms of psychological trauma, are trying to achieve.