Your Dog’s Stress Decoded: What You Missed

What signs of your dog’s stress are you missing?

We love our dogs and hate the idea that they may be feeling stressed or unhappy.  Dogs have coping mechanisms just like humans do.  Your dog’s stress  is a part of his everyday life and coping with it is a skill that we, along with our dogs, get plenty of opportunity to practice!

Learning how to manage stress from an early age is a huge advantage.  Our dogs also learn as young pups to cope with the daily stresses of life.  They are not allowed to chase the squirrel.  They must wait until you come home before they can go play in the yard.  They get hungry, bored or tired.  The well adjusted dog handles normal stress.

But what happens when stress adds up until it becomes just too much to handle all at once?  I’m sure anyone reading this can identify with that feeling! What happens next? Do you have a meltdown? Do you want to crawl into a hole and escape? Do you become hyper reactive, and easily startled? Do you easily get angry and snap at people?

We’ve all been there.

Now let’s take a second look how a  dog’s stress can be decoded by their actions.  See if you can relate.

Is the dog that likes to curl up in a corner when things get hectic feeling relaxed or is he actually coping with stress by withdrawing?

Does your dog seek constant reassurance and attention? Is this dog affectionate or insecure?

How about the dog that barks at visitors. Is he being protective or over reacting because he feels anxious?

Have you noticed repetitive behaviors that don’t seem to have a real purpose? Here are a few examples:

• Pacing from room to room and not settling down.
• Panting, licking, scratching without an obvious cause.
• Destructive behavior, especially when left alone.
• Tail chasing or biting at other parts of his body.
• Extreme sensitivity to noise and easily startled by ordinary sounds.

If they had words, what would dogs tell us about stress?

Most of the behaviors listed are dogs’ attempts to tell us humans that they need our help.  Dogs reveal their emotional state and their stress level with the language of their body and their behavior.

Do you recognize any of these stress behaviors in your own dog?  If you do, stay tuned because there are solutions that work.

When we learn how to manage our own stress, we can apply those same skills to alleviating the stress we recognize in our beloved dogs.  Our dogs mirror our feelings and are bonded to us in a profound way.

In upcoming posts, you are going to discover the incredibly powerful ways dogs and people help each other overcome stress and bring joy into each other’s lives.

You and your dog are an amazing team.  Together, you can set each other free!

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We’ll talk soon,

Marilyn