Generalised Anxiety in Dogs
If you have ever experienced anxiety yourself, had a panic attack or know someone with depression or anxiety, you can perhaps understand how crippling this can be. Anxiety can impact many areas of the body and many different aspects of behaviour.
Behaviour is defined as how a dog functions in their environment. Behaviour is what we as humans see, we don’t always see the feelings or emotions that drive the behaviour. It can be easier to forgive a dog chewing up an expensive bed, if you know the motivation was panic, rather than naughtiness.
When anxieties and fears are present, they tend to generalise to more and more situations and triggers. The stronger those abnormal responses become and the more ingrained the habits and learning are associated with them, the longer the behaviour is going to take to fix.
Mental health is a big topic for humans currently and it is becoming more socially acceptable to seek help in this area. Unfortunately for our pets there is still little understanding and help out there for the 20% of pets that struggle to cope with their anxiety.
Anxiety has been connected to reduced lifespan, gastrointestinal upsets, increased incidence of allergic skin disease and should be considered a chronic, yet treatable disease.
What causes anxiety?
This is never a simple answer, behaviour is influenced by genetics, early experiences and the environment.
Many pets are anxious even as puppies and we know that experiences prior to 8 weeks are important, as well as the emotional state of the mother. Unfortunately these are all things that cannot now be changed.
For pets that are fearful or reactive to other dogs, kids, strangers or scared of loud noises, this fear may actually come from an abnormal brain. It is quite likely that the behaviour would have developed anyway, but sometimes the triggers are different.
Some problem behaviours are learned responses and a strategy to cope with fear. As depicted in the Venn Diagram below, behaviour is a result of a combination of learning, genetics and environment.
Is anxiety more common in rescue dogs or certain breeds?
Just like humans, dogs are individuals. They all come with their own individual personalities and tendencies. While we can generalise that all working dogs are hyperactive and all Labradors love to eat, this is an oversimplification.
There are more differences within breeds than between them. There are however some characteristics of certain breeds that make behaviours more likely and maladaptive for current lifestyles.
When dogs were selected to bark and guard their humans, moving them into suburbia and asking them not to bark at people walking past the fence is difficult.
While it is certainly true that some dogs may have ended up at the pound due to their problem behaviours or did not have great early experiences. There are also many dogs that ended up in rescue through no fault of their own.
No matter their upbringing, mental health problems can occur in any dog, whether they went to puppy school, had early training, and despite ‘good’ breeding.
Dogs have as many different personalities as humans and just like humans they may bounce back from adversity, or they may develop fears and anxieties as a result of traumatic early experiences. This is where genetics often comes into play. They may also have default behaviours they fall into when placed under stress, as a result of their genetics (barking, herding, circling etc).
Blaming a pet’s past for their current behaviours does nothing to address the current problem and in fact may resign us to believing it cannot be helped. This is simply not true, we call all overcome our pasts to become the best version of ourselves within the limits of our intrinsic personalities.
What can we do to help anxious pets?
The first step is to seek help as soon as possible. Work with a good positive and rewards-based trainer if the behaviour is not yet impacting multiple areas of your life and your dog’s life. Aim to spend short, 5 minute training sessions with your dog. If the problem is severe, is impacting multiple areas of life and your pet is spending a great deal of time in a ‘flight or fright’ anxious state, you will need medications to help.
Anxious pets need to spend less time in environments and situations that make them scared. The more their brains spend time in a state of heightened alert and anxiety, the stronger those neural connections become. The more we practice a behaviour, the more hardwired it becomes. Having a rest from all that cortisol and adrenaline can go some way towards improving overall behaviour and the body changes that occur due to chronic stress.
Medications
The reality is that most dogs are not able to learn better responses to their environment if they are spending a great deal of time anxious or scared. Anxiety and fear make thinking and learning very hard. For anyone who has tried to study at the last minute for an exam, that cramming may enter your short-term memory, but it won’t be in your long-term memory. Stress and that ‘flight or fright’ system in our body, makes our thinking fuzzy and does not make for good brain connections.
Dogs that have anxious brains will not be able to be trained out of their anxiety. This is where medications can be essential to change the brain to make it more happy to learn new behaviours.
The most common medications we use alter serotonin levels, Serotonin deficiency has been associated with anxiety and depression, so most medications aim to slowly increase serotonin levels to aim for a more stable, calm baseline.
These medications are also generally considered to be very safe, however a separate handout will be provided depending on the medication selected for your pet. For some dogs that have a severe anxiety, they may need additional medications at least initially and for triggers that cannot be avoided.
If it is possible to introduce a behaviour modification or training plan that works, it is sometimes possible to gradually wean your pet off medications, but we always suggest staying on medications for at least 12 months, as this is how long it takes for permanent changes to occur in the brain that mean your dog is producing more serotonin and is more sensitive to the effects.
Training
For most pets they will need medications before it is possible to help them develop better coping strategies.
Once they are spending more time in a calm, relaxed state, it is then sometimes possible to gradually desensitise them and counter-condition them to the things that they are worried about. This needs to be done very gradually, always keeping your pet in a comfortable state where they are not showing stress signals. Before attempting this, make a list of all the things, big and small that your dog is scared of. You will also need to get very good at reading fear signals and body language and ensure that you always keep your dog in a state where he/she is relaxed.
We gradually start introducing triggers, one at a time and associating the trigger with treats and positive experiences. This can take months and there can be numerous set-backs if you take things too quickly.
The key is not to throw your pet in the deep end and flood them with too much scary stimuli. If your dog is scared of vacuum cleaners. You need to introduce the vacuum cleaner when it is turned off and a good distance away. Associate this with treats. Allow your pet to explore. Only turn it on when your pet is comfortable with the silent vacuum, and even then your pet needs to be a big distance away. Each step needs to be associated with pleasant things such as high value treats. As soon as your pet shows fearful body language, you need to take several steps back and reintroduce the stimuli at a lower level.
In a practical sense desensitisation and counter conditioning can be hard work, so working with a trainer to put together a plan can help. It is also worthwhile prioritising the things that really need to be worked on. If it is practical just to not vacuum while your pet is around, that is a valid thing to do, just work on desensitising to things that are harder to manage in other ways.
If you have ever experienced anxiety yourself, had a panic attack or know someone with depression or anxiety, you can perhaps understand how crippling this can be. Anxiety can impact many areas of the body and many different aspects of behaviour.
Behaviour is defined as how a dog functions in their environment. Behaviour is what we as humans see, we don’t always see the feelings or emotions that drive the behaviour. It can be easier to forgive a dog chewing up an expensive bed, if you know the motivation was panic, rather than naughtiness.
When anxieties and fears are present, they tend to generalise to more and more situations and triggers. The stronger those abnormal responses become and the more ingrained the habits and learning are associated with them, the longer the behaviour is going to take to fix.
Mental health is a big topic for humans currently and it is becoming more socially acceptable to seek help in this area. Unfortunately for our pets there is still little understanding and help out there for the 20% of pets that struggle to cope with their anxiety.
Anxiety has been connected to reduced lifespan, gastrointestinal upsets, increased incidence of allergic skin disease and should be considered a chronic, yet treatable disease.
What causes anxiety?
This is never a simple answer, behaviour is influenced by genetics, early experiences and the environment.
Many pets are anxious even as puppies and we know that experiences prior to 8 weeks are important, as well as the emotional state of the mother. Unfortunately these are all things that cannot now be changed.
For pets that are fearful or reactive to other dogs, kids, strangers or scared of loud noises, this fear may actually come from an abnormal brain. It is quite likely that the behaviour would have developed anyway, but sometimes the triggers are different.
Some problem behaviours are learned responses and a strategy to cope with fear. As depicted in the Venn Diagram below, behaviour is a result of a combination of learning, genetics and environment.
Is anxiety more common in rescue dogs or certain breeds?
Just like humans, dogs are individuals. They all come with their own individual personalities and tendencies. While we can generalise that all working dogs are hyperactive and all Labradors love to eat, this is an oversimplification.
There are more differences within breeds than between them. There are however some characteristics of certain breeds that make behaviours more likely and maladaptive for current lifestyles.
When dogs were selected to bark and guard their humans, moving them into suburbia and asking them not to bark at people walking past the fence is difficult.
While it is certainly true that some dogs may have ended up at the pound due to their problem behaviours or did not have great early experiences. There are also many dogs that ended up in rescue through no fault of their own.
No matter their upbringing, mental health problems can occur in any dog, whether they went to puppy school, had early training, and despite ‘good’ breeding.
Dogs have as many different personalities as humans and just like humans they may bounce back from adversity, or they may develop fears and anxieties as a result of traumatic early experiences. This is where genetics often comes into play. They may also have default behaviours they fall into when placed under stress, as a result of their genetics (barking, herding, circling etc).
Blaming a pet’s past for their current behaviours does nothing to address the current problem and in fact may resign us to believing it cannot be helped. This is simply not true, we call all overcome our pasts to become the best version of ourselves within the limits of our intrinsic personalities.
What can we do to help anxious pets?
The first step is to seek help as soon as possible. Work with a good positive and rewards-based trainer if the behaviour is not yet impacting multiple areas of your life and your dog’s life. Aim to spend short, 5 minute training sessions with your dog. If the problem is severe, is impacting multiple areas of life and your pet is spending a great deal of time in a ‘flight or fright’ anxious state, you will need medications to help.
Anxious pets need to spend less time in environments and situations that make them scared. The more their brains spend time in a state of heightened alert and anxiety, the stronger those neural connections become. The more we practice a behaviour, the more hardwired it becomes. Having a rest from all that cortisol and adrenaline can go some way towards improving overall behaviour and the body changes that occur due to chronic stress.
Medications
The reality is that most dogs are not able to learn better responses to their environment if they are spending a great deal of time anxious or scared. Anxiety and fear make thinking and learning very hard. For anyone who has tried to study at the last minute for an exam, that cramming may enter your short-term memory, but it won’t be in your long-term memory. Stress and that ‘flight or fright’ system in our body, makes our thinking fuzzy and does not make for good brain connections.
Dogs that have anxious brains will not be able to be trained out of their anxiety. This is where medications can be essential to change the brain to make it more happy to learn new behaviours.
The most common medications we use alter serotonin levels, Serotonin deficiency has been associated with anxiety and depression, so most medications aim to slowly increase serotonin levels to aim for a more stable, calm baseline.
These medications are also generally considered to be very safe, however a separate handout will be provided depending on the medication selected for your pet. For some dogs that have a severe anxiety, they may need additional medications at least initially and for triggers that cannot be avoided.
If it is possible to introduce a behaviour modification or training plan that works, it is sometimes possible to gradually wean your pet off medications, but we always suggest staying on medications for at least 12 months, as this is how long it takes for permanent changes to occur in the brain that mean your dog is producing more serotonin and is more sensitive to the effects.
Training
For most pets they will need medications before it is possible to help them develop better coping strategies.
Once they are spending more time in a calm, relaxed state, it is then sometimes possible to gradually desensitise them and counter-condition them to the things that they are worried about. This needs to be done very gradually, always keeping your pet in a comfortable state where they are not showing stress signals. Before attempting this, make a list of all the things, big and small that your dog is scared of. You will also need to get very good at reading fear signals and body language and ensure that you always keep your dog in a state where he/she is relaxed.
We gradually start introducing triggers, one at a time and associating the trigger with treats and positive experiences. This can take months and there can be numerous set-backs if you take things too quickly.
The key is not to throw your pet in the deep end and flood them with too much scary stimuli. If your dog is scared of vacuum cleaners. You need to introduce the vacuum cleaner when it is turned off and a good distance away. Associate this with treats. Allow your pet to explore. Only turn it on when your pet is comfortable with the silent vacuum, and even then your pet needs to be a big distance away. Each step needs to be associated with pleasant things such as high value treats. As soon as your pet shows fearful body language, you need to take several steps back and reintroduce the stimuli at a lower level.
In a practical sense desensitisation and counter conditioning can be hard work, so working with a trainer to put together a plan can help. It is also worthwhile prioritising the things that really need to be worked on. If it is practical just to not vacuum while your pet is around, that is a valid thing to do, just work on desensitising to things that are harder to manage in other ways.