The Wormald Stress Coping Style Framework

Why a dog's response can change as stress rises

CompaniCalm's Veterinary Technical Advisor, Dr Dennis Wormald, is presenting a new clinical framework publicly for the first time at the 2026 PPGA Conference. Dr Wormald is a behaviour veterinarian with a PhD in canine anxiety and Membership of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists in Veterinary Behaviour.

The proposed framework describes how an individual dog's preferred way of coping may change as that dog's level of fear, anxiety or stress changes. Dr Wormald developed it through his clinical work and his interpretation of the scientific literature on animal coping styles. It is presented as a working conceptual model that generates useful clinical hypotheses, rather than as a validated diagnostic system.

Central proposal: we cannot reliably classify a dog's coping style without considering how stressed that dog feels at the time. The same dog may cope passively at one stress level, actively at another and passively again when overwhelmed.

What is a stress coping style?

Animals use different behavioural and physiological strategies to manage challenging situations. This is broader than the familiar categories of fight, flight, freeze and fiddle. Coping includes anything the animal does, or refrains from doing, that helps it respond to the situation or regulate its emotional state.

Foundational animal research often used the terms proactive and reactive coping. In this framework, Dr Wormald uses active and passive instead. This avoids confusion with the very different way dog trainers commonly use the term “reactive dog”.

Active coping

A dog using an active coping strategy does something observable in response to stress. The behaviour may involve movement, vocalisation, social contact or an attempt to change the situation.

Active strategies can include:

• barking, growling, snapping or lunging to increase distance from a perceived threat;
• pulling away, escaping or attempting to reunite with an attachment figure;
• running, spinning or moving rapidly;
• seeking affection, play or social support;
• carrying a toy, chewing, eating, licking or destroying objects; and
• using learned activities such as pattern games, scent work or agility.

Active coping does not automatically mean aggression or behavioural pathology. Some active strategies are enjoyable and adaptive. Play, movement and seeking contact can help an animal cope emotionally. Other active strategies can become unsafe or maladaptive, particularly when they involve escape, aggression or repetitive behaviour.

Passive coping

A dog using a passive coping strategy reduces its engagement with the trigger rather than acting directly upon it. Passive strategies can include:

• freezing or becoming immobile;
• looking away or appearing to ignore the trigger;
• lying down, withdrawing or retreating to a safe place;
• reducing exploration, play or social interaction; and
• cowering, surrendering or becoming behaviourally inhibited.

Passive behaviour can be easy to miss because it causes fewer obvious problems for people. A quiet dog may still feel highly distressed. Looking away from another dog, remaining still during handling or staying alone in one room should not automatically be interpreted as calmness.

The problem with assigning one coping-style label

Traditional coping-style discussions can make active and passive coping sound like fixed, mutually exclusive types. Individual tendencies may remain important, but clinical observations suggest that the strategy a dog can use also depends on the intensity of its current stress.

The same external event does not create the same internal stress level in every dog. A growl played at the same volume, an unfamiliar dog at the same distance or the same veterinary procedure may feel mildly concerning to one dog and overwhelming to another. Even within one dog, changing distance, predictability, perceived control or prior experience may change the response.

This means a dog may appear passive because it is only mildly concerned. Another dog may appear passive because it has become too frightened to act. Those two dogs look superficially similar while experiencing very different internal states.

The Wormald Stress Coping Style Types

The proposed framework records the dog's predominant coping strategy at three relative levels of stress: low, moderate and high. Each type uses a three-letter code:

• P means predominantly passive coping.
• A means predominantly active coping.
• The first letter represents low stress, the second moderate stress and the third high stress.

“Low stress” still means that the dog experiences some concern. It does not mean a completely relaxed baseline.

PPP: passive at low, moderate and high stress

A PPP dog predominantly withdraws, freezes or becomes inhibited as stress rises. These dogs may restrict themselves to a small part of the home, show little spontaneous exploration, rarely play or retreat after sudden events. At high stress they may become even less responsive.

PPP dogs may receive help late, if at all, because their distress rarely inconveniences people. Their lack of barking, lunging or destruction can hide the severity of their anxiety and its effect on quality of life.

PPA: passive at low and moderate stress, active at high stress

A PPA dog may avoid, look away or remain still through lower levels of stress, then suddenly bark, lunge, snap, bite or make an intense escape attempt once its stress becomes high. To an observer, the dog can appear to react without warning or go from “0 to 100”. In reality, the earlier warnings may have been passive and easy to overlook.

Once treatment and management reduce the dog's stress below that high range, the active behaviour may settle relatively quickly. The dog may still need help, even when the conspicuous reaction has disappeared.

PAA: passive at low stress, active at moderate and high stress

A PAA dog responds actively across a wider range of stress. Barking, pulling, escape behaviour or defensive aggression may begin at moderate stress and persist as stress increases, becoming more intense. These dogs attract attention because their coping is highly visible.

A small reduction in stress may not be enough to change what people see. The dog's stress may need to fall into the low range before it can disengage or use a passive strategy. This can make progress appear slow even while the underlying emotional state is improving.

PAP: passive at low stress, active at moderate stress and passive at high stress

PAP appears to be a very common. It is well recognised in rescue and rehomed dogs that appear "shut down" initially when at high stress, and then behavioural issues emerge over the following weeks as their stress reduces and they enter the active coping phase of moderate stress. At low stress, a dog may notice a trigger but look away or continue with another activity. At moderate stress, the dog may bark, pull, snap or try to escape. When stress becomes overwhelming, the same dog may disengage, cower, freeze or surrender.

This creates two risks of misinterpretation. First, increasing stress may move the dog from an active response at moderate stress into passive behaviour at high stress. The dog becomes quieter, but may feel worse. Behavioural suppression should not be mistaken for emotional improvement.

Second, effective treatment may initially move a severely stressed dog in the opposite direction. As the dog moves from overwhelming stress into the moderate range, it may regain the capacity to bark, move or actively create distance. The new behaviour can look like deterioration even though other measures show improved confidence and functioning. Dr Wormald refers to this temporary stage as the “active hump” which must be overcome before moving to passive coping once more at low stress.

The goal is not to leave the dog in that moderate active range. Continued treatment and careful behaviour modification aim to reduce stress further, allowing the dog to reach the low-stress range and respond more calmly.

Clinical example: Holly

Holly was a rescue dog adopted at approximately one year of age. By the time of her behaviour consultation, she had stopped being able to complete walks to the local park. When frightened on a walk she sat down and refused to move forward instead of pulling away. Her owners reported no major behavioural problems inside the home.

A wider history revealed a different picture. Holly confined herself to a few self-selected safe areas, showed little interest in toys and rarely played. She spent long periods licking, cowered in response to sudden movement and usually preferred to remain alone. Loud noises caused her to retreat rather than bark or investigate. When unfamiliar dogs approached, she generally backed away. Defensive behaviour occurred only occasionally, especially when surprise or proximity removed the option of passive avoidance.

Dr Wormald diagnosed generalised anxiety with a predominantly passive coping style. The initial treatment goal focused on improving Holly's confidence and quality of life at home, rather than judging success only by whether she could reach the park. Her plan included veterinary treatment, nutritional support and later behaviour modification at larger-than-usual working distances.

After three weeks, Holly became more active around the home and more willing to leave for walks. She also began barking at unfamiliar people and dogs, which she had rarely done before treatment. Viewed alone, the barking could suggest that she had worsened. Viewed alongside her increased activity, confidence and willingness to explore, it raised another possibility: Holly may have been a PAP dog moving from passive coping at very high stress into active coping at moderate stress while on walks.

This remained a clinical hypothesis rather than proof. The framework nevertheless changed the questions being asked. Instead of measuring Holly's progress through barking alone, her team could assess her whole pattern of behaviour, functional capacity and quality of life while helping her move through the active range towards genuinely lower stress.

What this framework changes in practice

• Quiet behaviour requires interpretation. Freezing, disengagement and apparent compliance may indicate passive coping rather than comfort.
• More visible behaviour does not always mean greater underlying distress. A dog gaining enough confidence to act may temporarily bark, move or protest more.
• Thresholds differ between dogs. The intensity of the external trigger cannot tell us exactly how stressful the dog finds it.
• Progress should include function and quality of life. Exploration, play, social engagement, recovery and voluntary movement may reveal improvement that a simple behaviour count misses.
• Training plans should protect passive copers. These dogs can cross threshold without the conspicuous warnings shown by more active copers, so they may need greater distances and more conservative progression.
• Training plans may benefit by leaning into the coping style of the dog. If a dog is coping actively with stress, training protocols that encourage active behaviour may be useful as they align with the personality of that dog. Likewise, protocols that are more stationary and less active could be better for stressed dogs that are coping passively. Thus the exact training used may need to vary for the same dog, as the improve over time wth reducing stress.

A proposed framework, not a finished taxonomy

The four types above form the initial clinical framework. Dogs may not fit neatly into one category across every trigger or context, and their responses may change with learning, health, environment and available options. The model also leaves open whether additional patterns, including predominantly active coping at low stress, should become separate types.

The framework makes testable predictions. Studies could expose the same dogs to graded versions of a carefully controlled stressor and examine whether individuals shift between active and passive behaviour in repeatable patterns. Researchers could then compare those behavioural changes with physiology, recovery and longer-term clinical outcomes.

Until that work occurs, the framework should guide observation and hypothesis formation rather than function as a diagnosis. Its immediate value lies in reminding us that the behaviour we see reflects both the dog's coping tendency and where that dog currently sits on its stress curve.

Framework attribution: The stress-level-dependent coping framework and the PPP, PPA, PAA and PAP clinical types were proposed by Dr Dennis Wormald and introduced publicly through his 2026 PPGA Conference presentation and this accompanying article. Suggested citation: Wormald, D. (2026). The Wormald Stress Coping Style Framework: stress-dependent coping types in dogs. Conference presentation and accompanying article.

About the author: Dr Dennis Wormald, BVSc (Hons), PhD (canine anxiety), MANZCVS (Veterinary Behaviour), is a behaviour veterinarian and the Veterinary Technical Advisor to CompaniCalm.

This article describes a proposed conceptual framework for professional discussion and future research. It does not provide a diagnosis or an individual treatment plan. Dogs showing fear, anxiety, aggression, withdrawal or major changes in behaviour should receive assessment from an appropriately qualified veterinarian.

References

Koolhaas, J. M., et al. (1999). Coping styles in animals: current status in behavior and stress-physiology. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 23(7), 925–935.