Dog Stress – 8 Great Tips to Help Your Dog Through His Meanderings

 

Our dogs are sweet and love us unconditionally, so it’s only natural that we would want to have them with us as much as possible, and even expectant. With our lives and our families, it would be nearly impossible NOT to include our dogs in our lives, especially now that we are single and no longer work outside of our home.

However, on the other hand, our dogs don’t know how to handle being IN public, and they are sure to get stressed and anxious in unfamiliar situations, no matter how familiar they are with them. In some cases dogs may also act out simply because they don’t understand what is going on, even though they are very well-trained. This can be especially true when mixed breeds are adopted, as the impairment of some of their senses make them more sensitive to strange noises, and things.

However, with calm and understanding dog owners, just about anyone can handle this kind of sensitive situation. Here are some simple techniques you can start using right now, to comfort your dog.

Try listening to white noise, like a fan or air conditioner. Put the fan or air conditioner on in your room or outside, so it is loud for a while. White noise has a particularly calming effect on animals, and especially calming dogs.

Keep your dog on a leash, and keep him nicely muzzled if necessary. Has he learned his commands, but you need to carefully reintroduce them in public. Zipping andustomed to the muzzle in the home may overwhelm him when you are out in public.

Prevent him from jumping on tables and counters.

Get him trained to sit and heel and use it when introducing him to new experiences and people. If you use the heel command instead of the sit command, your dog will get used to following you when you walk.

Keep a jar with marbles or coins handy. This sounds silly, but you never know when you might use it. If you use the coins,shake them all over the place (are you hiding marbles?!) to make the dog get used to them and associate them with marbles. Then toss a marbles jar into the trash (pportheless of course, if you have a dog that barks at anything it sounds like a can full of marbles, just ask him the can name).

Allow your dog to explore flowerbeds and grassy areas. You especially want to keep your dog away from your flowerbeds and well away from the lawn. If you live in the city, ticks can be a problem.

Bandage your dog if he gets hurt.

Play and exercise your dog daily. This will help him burn off excess energy, which will prevent his wandering around and depression. Exercise also helps him wear excess pounds.

If you can’t exercise your dog every day, take him to the doggie park where he can run and play with other dogs.

If you don’t want to exercise, get him a small craft to jog in. Also get him lots of toys so he won’t want to chew on your slippers (or the furniture). And if you have a breed like a Border Collie, get him a border/riffon tug toy. This will help him keep at it by tugging on a bit of fabric. As a last resort, walk him or teach him to walk on a treadmill (tend to think that he’s going to be doing five miles just by hearing the word “walk”).