One of my previous dogs, Mack, was frightened of everything. He’d been shut in a farm shed for the first 8-9 weeks of his life (hint: never buy a dog that has not lived in a home setting…). When we brought him home, I took him onto the lawn to have a pee – or at least I tried to. He dug his tiny heels in and cowered in abject terror at the sight of the strange green stuff.
That was the start of a very long journey – one that eventually lead to me becoming The Doggy Doctor and a big reason why helping people with their fearful, reactive, aroused dogs is something I now specialise in.
A Finnish study recently showed that 73% of pet dogs struggle with fear and anxiety – over 6,000 dogs in the study were fearful, often lunging and barking at strangers and/or other dogs they didn’t know – being afraid of dogs often correlated with fear of people
The main problem was lack of early socialisation. The results also varied by breed, because to some extent fear is genetic. This was certainly the case with Mack.
Fear’s a funny thing. How do you react when you’re scared, Kate P? Some people freeze, some become excessively fidgety, unable to stay still, some tell (bad) jokes and some giggle inanely. Dogs do a similar range of things, freezing, lying down, lunging, barking, panting, or twirling in circles – although they don’t tell bad jokes.
It’s no fun being scared. Your stress hormones peak and this can cause health problems, in you and in your dog. Living in a state of arousal means you become even more reactive and it becomes a vicious cycle.
With Mack I ended up planning walks and most of our lives around avoiding problems – keeping him away from other people and dogs by walking at unsocial times, and if we did meet someone, screaming at people to keep themselves and their dogs away. It was highly stressful for Mack and for me and I feel guilty even now that life wasn’t much fun for him.
You can benefit from the steep learning curve I went through and all the stuff I’ve learned since. You can work with me to help your fearful, aroused, reactive dog through our Reactive Rover Bootcamps.
I’ll help you, but you’ll need to do the work!
Keep training and keep safe,
Carol