6 Tips to Help Your Anxious Dog
Are you contributing to your dog’s anxious behavior?
Whether we want to believe it or not, dogs are self-reliant and have been for thousands of years. It’s only when humans intervene with the natural canine mental state of survival that results in anxious dog. Canines have a method (system) of surviving, and when humans interrupt the canine’s mental state, it starts to break down.
How does this happen? We create an anxious dog by providing everything for them and not having the dog work for it! A canine will lose its instilled genetic ability to survive because it no longer has to work to survive. Resulting in The Downward Spiral mentality of the dog.
Then, when the human leaves the dog alone, the dog now feels that it cannot survive without the aid of that human. Dogs see us as other dogs that just look and smell differently to them. They don’t know that we’re humans. All they know is that we provide resources for them hand over fist. The ability to do it on their own has now been completely taken away because they haven’t needed to look or work for those resources. The same can be said of human interaction.
“We kept up with Jesse's program religiously and Coco became a completely different dog.
She stopped reacting to other dogs and now looks to us for direction on what to do next instead of trying to handle a situation on her own, and loves being in her crate. He is so knowledgeable about dog behavior and how our behavior or insecurities transfer to our dogs. This is key, friends. You won't be sorry that you decided to work with him.”
Kea D.
Long Beach, CA
Dogs don’t interact with each other as humans interact with dogs. We coddle them too much which causes insecurity in their own independence. This is how we begin to create an anxious dog. Again, dogs have survived without us for thousands of years and here we come upsetting the apple cart… In saying this, not all dogs are mentally stable, just as not all humans are mentally stable.
Here are 6 things you can do if you have an anxious dog or its becoming anxious:
Make sure your dog is getting plenty of exercise. For dogs, walking is a stress reliever. Walk your dog at least 3 times a day for around 25 minutes each time and don’t stop at every tree. Remember, it’s exercise.
Give your dog its own space. If your dog is constantly next to you or on your lap, have them stay in their own space or bed. When your dog is always around you, it can cause your dog to lose their self-reliance and confidence.
Build your anxious dog’s confidence. This is done by working on obedience training. Most dogs have little or no obedience training.
Stop talking to your dog. Dogs don’t speak English! They only know the words that they associate with something or obedience commands, that is, if they’ve been trained. They watch us 24/7 and know what we’re going to do before we do it. They’re experts at reading body language. They don’t need a play-by-play from us as this only causes confusion and makes your anxious dog worse.
Never free-feed your dog. Put them on a schedule. If a dog needs to rely on you to feed him daily, he will see you as the provider, and not a resource which is exactly what a dog in the leadership position does.
Leave your dog at home. They need independence from you. Not taking your dog with you every time you leave the house will help it be a more confident and less anxious dog.
Think of these exercises as your social distancing from your dog.