Anxiety isn’t just a human malady. Dogs feel anxious, too, for a wide variety of reasons. While unpleasant, it’s a normal part of life and a healthy emotion. However, if a dog experiences prolonged stress, it can become a problem. Instead of reaching for a pharmaceutical solution, there are natural ways to alleviate your dog’s anxiety.
How Do You Know If Your Dog is Anxious?
The signs of anxiety are usually undeniable and can be traumatic for dogs and their owners. Anxiety can present itself in several ways through your dog’s body language, including:
- Trembling
- Whining or barking
- Pacing and panting
- Drooling
- Excessive licking
- Fleeing or hiding
- Ears flat and tail tucked
- Destructive behaviors
- Aggression
- Appetite loss/weight loss
- Loss of bladder/bowel control
- Diarrhea
What Causes Anxiety in Dogs?
The first step in solving the problem is understanding why your dog is anxious. Here are some of the most common triggers for anxiety in dogs:
- Separation from you
- Change in routine
- Loud noises
- Weather
- Relocation or travel
- Changes in their environment
- New additions to the family
- Holiday gatherings
- Strangers
- Illness and injury
In this blog, we dive into each anxiety trigger and how you can help your furry friend overcome them.
Separation Anxiety
Dogs tend to be more prone to separation anxiety than cats. Dogs who have been adopted from shelters are more likely to experience separation anxiety than dogs who have been in the family since puppyhood. In the wild, dogs are rarely separated from their pack. There is safety and reassurance in numbers. That’s the reason separation anxiety is the most common type of anxiety. In addition, some breeds of dogs are more likely to have general anxiety than others, such as German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers.
Changes in Routine
Dogs thrive on consistency and routine, leaving them feeling vulnerable when disrupted. Maybe you’ve just lost a loved one who was living with you. Losing another pet or moving into a new home could lead to an overly anxious pooch.
Loud Noises
Loud, unknown noises can scare dogs. Anything from noisy traffic to fire alarms and gunshots to construction noise can cause fear and anxiety in dogs. Loud noises can make dogs try to flee even the most comfortable homes to find relief. This is one reason microchipping your pet is so important! According to Pet Amber Alert, animal control officers report a 30 to 60 percent increase in lost pets between July 4 and July 6.
Weather
Wind, rain, thunder, and lightning can cause anxiety or fear in dogs. Dogs can actually sense barometric pressure changes. This alerts them of impending weather changes, which produces anxiety. Since thunderstorms are a common summertime occurrence in places like Florida, this can result in chronic anxiety for many dogs.
Relocation or Travel
While many of us love to bring Fido along on the airplane or in the RV, it can be highly stressful for him. Not only is it an experience that’s pretty foreign to their day-to-day activities, but it’s a whole new world of sights, sounds, and smells. Even the most chill dog can become anxious when feeling the unusual sensation of take-off or landing or entering a new Airbnb with new smells.
Changes in Their Environment
This might be as simple as having an extended house guest, or even more stressful to most dogs, introducing a new puppy or kitten into the home. Because their sense of smell is so acute, even changing the air freshener to one less agreeable to your dog can cause anxiety.
New Additions to the Family
That squirming little bundle of joy can be confusing to your pet. They smell different than their other humans, and their humans act differently around the new addition. Their humans are more protective, which the dog senses immediately, and might even scold the dog for getting too close. This is confusing and disheartening to a beloved pet who might have been the apple of Mom and Dad’s eye until the new little human arrived.
Holiday Gatherings
The holidays are an extremely happy yet stressful time for all involved, and your dog senses your anxiety. All the gift buying and wrapping, party prepping, and the arrival and departure of guests can make Fido uneasy and anxious. There are also a lot of environmental changes, like decorated trees and boxes coming out of the attic, that further disrupt your dog’s sense of security.
Strangers
Some dogs are happy to greet any hand that will pet them, while others are much more protective of their pack and environment. The latter isn’t likely to be welcoming to strangers and might even feel so anxious as to growl or nip at the new intruder. Expecting this type of dog to welcome strangers naturally isn’t realistic and requires lots of patience and the normalization of meeting new people.
Illness and Injury
Just like people, dogs feel anxious when they don’t feel well. This is the anxiety trigger we’re most concerned with at Jacksonville Community Pet Clinics. This type of anxiety usually comes on suddenly in a dog that was not anxious before. There are several medical reasons your dog might be suffering from a new level of anxiety:
- Hypothyroidism: when fear responses and anxiety symptoms are coupled with weight gain, hair loss, or lethargy, the cause might be a thyroid gland that doesn’t produce enough hormones
- Thyrotoxicosis: also called Grave’s Disease, a rare autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid gland
- Encephalitis: inflammation and swelling of brain tissue can lead to anxiety behavior, as well as aggression, seizures, clumsy gait, and even coma
- Pre-diabetes: when new generalized anxiety is accompanied by weight gain, excessive thirst, or the appearance of cataracts, pre-diabetes may be the issue
- Hearing or vision loss: dogs without one of their senses may startle easily and become anxious about their unknown surrounding
A visit to your vet can help you rule out potential stressors or set you on the right treatment path to make your dog feel better.
How To Help Your Dog Alleviate Anxiety Naturally
While some might turn to pharmaceutical anti-anxiety medications or CBD-infused treats to calm their dogs, we recommend a more natural behavioral approach. These are our top six recommendations for calming Fido down.
Exercise
Anxiety can cause an excess of energy. Taking your dog out to play ball, go for a walk, or fetch a stick before you leave, before guests arrive, or before heading out in the car can go a long way in relieving your dog’s stress.
Physical Contact
Dogs want nothing more than to be loved. When calming your dog down, a pet or a hug from its owner is gold.
Massage
Massages aren’t just relaxing for humans. A massage can work wonders on an anxious dog. Start at the neck and work down the body with long, firm strokes. Keep one hand on the dog while the other works to massage. Over time, you might be able to identify where your dog holds its stress (such as in the shoulders), allowing you to focus on that area.
Music Therapy
As William Congreve said in the late 1600s, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast.” It is widely known that music affects people’s heart rate and blood pressure. The same holds true for your dog. There are many channels on YouTube that you can play that are specifically designed to help reduce anxiety.
Time Out
You never want to scold your dog for feeling anxious, but a timeout when a dog is acting out can give them a chance to isolate themselves in a safe, quiet space to calm their frayed nerves. If your dog is crate trained, they’ll feel secure in their crate, perhaps with a blanket over it to make it more of a den.
Calming Coats or T-Shirts
Devices such as the Thundershirt Anxiety Jacket use gentle compression on a dog’s torso that has the same calming effect as a hug.
What If None of These Natural Approaches Work?
There are prescribed therapies we can offer to help calm down your dog. If your dog develops a severe anxiety disorder, one of our veterinarians may recommend medications or natural treatments. SSRIs and antidepressants are occasionally prescribed for dogs with anxiety, including fluoxetine and clomipramine. For predictable anxiety-producing events like thunderstorms, fireworks, or car rides, we might prescribe a medication such as a benzodiazepine and an antidepressant to help your dog cope with the stress.
Some dog owners have successfully used CBD oil to treat dog anxiety. CBD is a compound found in cannabis and hemp that dog owners, as well as humans, have found helpful in treating a variety of different health conditions. Anecdotal reports from dog owners claim that CBD oil can effectively treat dog anxiety.
The good news is that many solutions help restore peace to you and your stressed-out pet. These include medication, new food formulas, and special supplements designed to combat the ill effects of stress. At Jacksonville Community Pet Clinics, We can help you find the right way to keep your dog’s anxiety at bay.
