stressed dogs

thegela

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201303/do-humans-serve-safe-haven-stressed-dogs

Based on this article, it's better to comfort your dog when he/she's stressed by something. I also remember hearing that when you comfort your dog all the time, you reinforce the behaviour that it's okay to have a fearful reaction. Can someone clarify this and the difference between the two actions?
At what point would I be reinforcing fearful/stressed behaviour and at what point am I offering comfort and relief from stress?

Losech

Hmm, interesting.
Conker does a lot better if I attempt to calm him down after something frightening. If I just ignore him, he'll stay worked up, or work himself up even more, and will react more strongly the next time that particular thing happens again. If I talk in a low soothing voice and pet him slowly, he'll chill out quicker, be less twitchy afterwards, and not react as bad the next time around.
So, for Conker at least, calming works better than not.

Hinata23

Hopefully this makes sense, but the way I think of it is we try not to "comfort" ChoCho so much as "reassure" her. Similar to what @losech does with Conker, I will say stuff like, "It's ok, ChoCho," and scratch her chest, then try to distract her with a treat or just walk calmly away from whatever she's afraid of.

That might sound like a small distinction, but I make sure not to hug her or pick her up or do anything that might reinforce her being frightened. I try to do just enough to acknowledge that she's scared, but show that I am not. It's also really important, I think, not to get stressed out when she's having a spaz attack because she senses it and it makes things a lot worse.

Also, sometimes I think you can do things to make the dog comfortable without comforting them. For example, when there are a lot of people over and I can tell ChoCho is starting to freak out, I try to position myself somewhere (like behind the kitchen counter away from where everyone is hanging out) where she can see the people, but still hide behind me or escape if she wants to. Being able to spy on people at her leisure seems to help her relax more quickly. Otherwise, if I just leave her to herself without a safe spot, she runs around and gets more and more worked up until I have to remove her completely from the situation, which is never ideal. I think she would love to just have an invisibility cloak so she can sneak up behind people and sniff them without them noticing

jellyfish

neither comforting nor ignoring works with Toki. I dunno, I feel like the only thing that helps Toki is to let him face his on fears on his own, let him take everything in and see that he survives. Not "flooding" per-say, but just exposure to the thing that he is frustrated by. Of course, I give him a lot of positive reinforcement and take things slow, but sometimes I feel like what it boils down to is Toki facing his fear. Putting him in a situation and saying "let him battle his own demons. he will get over it. he will see that he lives".

So, as you can see from other posts, I think it differs from dog to dog.

shibamistress

I've always been dubious about the "comforting reinforces fear" idea, personally. It always sounded a bit too much like "tough love" and I often saw it too often paired with dominance stuff. Plus, fear is not rational, and we can't stop them from having them fearful reaction, but we can teach them ways to deal with fear. Often, in working with fearful dogs, the idea is to get the dog to focus on the handler, anyway, so they find a way to handle their own fear (looking to the owner) and work through it, rather than just getting caught up in it.

Obviously, it varies from dog to dog, and I can see it if the a person really overreacted, like swooping in and grabbing up a dog or something, but mostly I thought, if my dog is coming to me for comfort, why would I not give the dog that comfort? Especially with these NKs who can be so stoic--when one of them seems scared and wants to be near me, I think that's a big deal, and of course I'm going to try to calm them by speaking softly/calmly, stroking them, etc. Or in some cases just let them self soothe by leaning against me.

So Coren's article made a lot of sense to me--dogs do take comfort from our presence, I think. and it also reminds me it is our job, then, to keep them safe, and pay attention to their cues about when they feel stressed/uncomfortable, so we can keep that bond strong.

thegela

I think she would love to just have an invisibility cloak so she can sneak up behind people and sniff them without them noticing

awww that is so cute! (Hana too probably! haha)

@jellyfish yeah you're right. It makes sense that different methods would work for different dogs. It's just a matter of discovering what works and what doesn't I suppose. I think I'm still figuring out what works for Hana and what doesn't.

@shibamistress yeah I guess our natural reaction to our dog coming to us for comfort is to at least pet and talk to them, so it kind of doesn't make sense to just ignore them which is counter intuitive I think. Coddling and overreacting is probably when it becomes not the best reaction to have when your dog is stressed.

This is great to read how everyone reacts to their dog when stressed or fearful. It's really interesting!

WrylyBrindle

some good books:

Stress in Dogs by Clarissa Von Reinhardt (dogwise books)
and
Barking: Sound of a language by Turid Rugaas.

Turid goes through various kinds of barking, but think of it more as "my dog is alert/upset about something" and she says you should always check it out and support the dog, make it safe, change focus.

Being in a strong relationship is about trusting and honoring what is true for the other at the time. I comfort my dogs- but not every yelp. Its like with kids, they will fall down and an adult's response colors thier response. Once they know that they can get right back up and everyone falls down, mom says "Whoops- ya allright? up you go..." they tend to unless they really hurt themselves. But if mommy overreacts: comes running gasps and makes a fuss they'll learn to cry wolf.

Sage settles a lot quicker if I go address his concern than if i ignore him, and doesnt settle if I yell at him. I still feel like yelling at him, but I take a breath or two, get off my duff and go see that yes, theres a truck out there, but its fine. He will also now come seek me if he's having a problem, and lean against me, I pet him and talk to him and he's all right. If I dont go check on things, he'll bark and bark and get worked up into a lather...

when Im not here to address his issues though, I need to leave him in the least stimulating room with music on, etc. to reduce the incidences of alarm when im not here to help him out of the tree.