One day, in a beautiful morning under the clear sky, you decided to have a walk with your beloved dog to enjoy the morning sunshine. Everything goes smooth until another dog with all the excitement came in your way. Of course, you would happily welcome this new guest, but on a sudden your own dog start to growl, ears flattened, even barking at the dog and pull you to evade the new guest. If that happened, all those signs are symptoms of fear and anxiety on dog.
There’s dog behavior problems you should know and common dog fears that every owner must know. Proactive action is needed from the owner to determine whether your dog behavior is normal or not. If – in case – prove that your dog is a shy dog, then you can train your shy dog become more friendly. In case that your dog is scared, you could train your adult dog not to be scared, or if it’s a puppy – well, fear is pretty normal for puppy.
But, you could teach your fearful puppy gain confidence – it’ll help them to eliminate the fear so they could have grown to be an healthy adult dog mentally and physically. Fear that growing inside your dog could be an habit if you let him keep it. Usually, afraid of other dog ensue from the lack of socialization, make him afraid to interact and easy scared by unfamiliar figure and more dominant dog.
So, how to teach your dog not afraid of other dog? Try to put yourself on your dog’s shoes and feel what they felt – help your dog overcome and manage the fears with full of understanding and compassion, to make him adjust with his milieu. To fathom all the causes of the fears which ambush and steer your dog behavior and eliminate this permanently from your dog’s life.
How Could This Fear Occur In Dog?
Afraid of other dog happened caused by these three main reasons: lack of socialization, past trauma, and submissiveness. Now, we’re going to dig deeper about these three causes which trigger the fears:
Lack of Socialization
First socialization begins in your dog life is with his mother. But, after they are weaned from his mother, we have to provide our dog with another new circle of socialization that will keep him accompany. If dog unprovided from a proper social interaction with other dog or people – is not a surprise if they grown become a coward and get scared easier even with a little thing or new situation.
Past Trauma
Your dog’s fear of other might be embedded from his past life which bring him trauma. What kind of trauma? Trauma being attacked by another dog, or being abused by his former owner (in case your dog is adopted) would remind him of the ache of unseen wound he ever taken. A dedicated therapy need to provide for this situation. Make him understand that you would never do anything harm or put him in a danger situation.
Submissiveness
Usually this occur caused by less-dominant nature. Some dogs are born with a tender and softer nature than other, it makes them being submissive by another dog. Your dog naturally would fear another dog caused of lack confidence within himself. For this case, you could teach your submissive dog to be assertive to other dog and also, develop and increase the confidence within himself.
The Treatments You Should Provide
Afraid of other dog is a behavioral problem not a medical problem (unless the fear was a form of illness symptoms). You can ask advice from your veterinarian for a professional trainer or behaviorist to help you solve your dog’s problem. First step, the behaviorist or the professional trainer would observe your dog and find the caused of your dog fear of other dog.
After that, you can ask them to train your dog – or – if you dedicated to train him by yourself – you can ask some tips or methods on how to handle your dog when he changed to the “fear” mode. One of the methods you can apply to your dog is desensitization. Desensitization is a method which require you to expose your dog with the source of fears – in this case is other dog.
You need to do this gradually to achieve maximum result of boosting your dog’s confidence – to make them accustomed by the new social life with other dog and people. Gradually keep him accompany with other dog with you beside him to watch them. If you find that your dog begins comfortable with this circle, you can try to leave him alone with the dog and observe his behavior from distance.
Take your dog to experience an adventurous journey to places which you can meet with many other dogs – and make sure you bring some treats with you to teach your dog how to socialize. How? Lead him to interact with other dog; if he decided to follow you – give him a treat as a reward, but if he walked away and evade the dog – don’t give him anything. Apply this pattern over and over again.
Soon or later, your beloved dog would recognize this pattern and accustomed with the situation. He will regard this training as an excited experience and change his perspective about the terrified socialization which he always thought. Scheduled this training gradually to get the maximum result. The most important thing is, respect your dog’s learning speed. Do they learn it quickly or slowly, you have to accept the way they are and never push your own time to him.
How to Prevent Afraid of Other Dog
Lastly from how to teach your dog not afraid of other dog is how to prevent this event to occur. Keep monitoring your dog daily interact with other dog, to protect him from sudden attack that could be harm. If you raise a puppy, it’s suggested that you begin to create social circle both with people and dog since early stage.
In earlier stage of training, avoid uncontrollably places with high possibility of increasing his anxiety and make him vulnerable. Let them socialized with your neighborhood or friends only – and give his own space to learns new things.