A Dog’s Emotional Health

An Emotionally Sound Dog Begins with an 8-Week Old Puppy

I don’t like math.

When I was six years old my first-grade teacher, Ms. T., stood by my desk and berated me in front of the whole class when I started counting on my fingers to get the answer to a math problem. She had expected me to do it in my head.

As a result, I spent a lot of time in class being afraid of getting the answer wrong.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t learn math, or that doing it was going to physically hurt me, the problem was that early negative experience.

My negative experience + at an impressionable age = negative emotions around math.

And it stuck.

Dogs may never have fear around math, but they can be fearful around ordinary sights and sounds like a bag blowing across a parking lot or the beeping sound of a truck backing up.

Most of us have seen a dog express emotions of love, joy, excitement, playfulness and contentment. On the flip side, they also can feel and express anxiety, anger, shyness and fear.

In an excerpt from the book, Animals in Translation , animal behaviorist, Dr. Temple Grandin Ph. D, says “Fear is so bad for animals I think it’s worse than pain.”

Small amounts of short-term stress are an inevitable part of life, but when it’s prolonged or recurring, it becomes detrimental to the dog’s emotional health.

When a dog perceives he is being threatened, harmed, or attacked it sets off a physiological reaction called the “fight or flight” response. If the dog is unable to escape the situation he may switch to fight mode. The intensity of either response can vary depending on the circumstances and prior history.

Fight responses:
– Barking
– Lunging
– Attacking/Biting

Flight responses:
– Cowering
– Running away
– Hiding
– Freezing

The good news is we have the ability to dramatically reduce what a dog perceives as scary.

8 week old puppy + begin socializing = A happier puppy and adult dog!

Learn 3 things that will influence your puppy’s happiness here.

If my 1st-grade teacher had handled things differently, would I have grown up to have a career in numbers? Probably not… and luckily for me, dogs don’t need to learn math.

Susan Lynch is a former competitive dog trainer who has been training, competing and volunteering with her Golden Retrievers since 1995. In 2020, she founded Life with Rune, a Facebook community that documents the socializing and training of her own puppy Rune. She is currently writing her memoir: Following Their Lead: A Mother’s Journey Through Grief and The Dogs That Saved Her. To learn more about her visit: www.susan-lynch.com.

For socializing ideas and training tips go to the Life with Rune Facebook group and click on the Guides tab at the top of the home page.