How To Make Your Dog Feel Safe

While love is important, environment and human behavior are the key factors in determining if your dog feels safe.

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Many dog owners would do anything for their dogs. They buy the best food, invest in training, shower them with affection, and purchase the latest and greatest enrichment toys. Yet some of these dogs may spend parts of their days in a low-level state of stress.
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3 COMMENTS

  1. When we encountered other dogs and their owners, we sometimes noticed that the ‘aggression’, anxiety or fearfulness of some dogs often reflect their owners attitudes toward other dogs. They may pull their dog away, across the road or scoop them up as soon as they see another owner and dog coming. To the more receptive owners I conveyed that our dogs were respectful and friendly and never had a negative encounter with any dog. Several owners believed us and then were stunned by the friendly normal encounter between their and our animals. They would never have thought it possible and were overjoyed that their dog didn’t ‘attack’/wasn’t ‘attacked’ by an unknown dog. For many people and dogs, this was a first experience. I hope the owners realized and remembered that their own behavior reflected on their dogs reaction, and that they eventually started to allow their dogs to meet and greet other non-aggressive or ‘not-overactive’ dogs (which in my opinion are easy to recognize).