#129 - Q&A: All About Anxiety in Dogs

Wondering if your dog will “grow out of” anxiety? Or if a sit-stay will solve their fear of strangers? This Q&A episode clears up the most common misunderstandings about anxiety in dogs and gives you the tools to actually help.

Allie, Emily, and Ellen break down the difference between anxiety, fear, and reactivity; why breed stereotypes don’t dictate destiny; and how to tell if your dog’s “happy” behavior might actually be stress in disguise. You’ll also hear why some well-meaning training advice can make things worse and what to do instead to set your dog (and yourself) up for calmer, more confident days.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 

1️⃣ Anxiety ≠ Fear ≠ Reactivity – Anxiety is anticipation, fear is reaction, and reactivity can be rooted in many things (including excitement). They look different, and they call for different kinds of support.

2️⃣ Play isn’t always “happy” – Species-typical behaviors can be fueled by stress, so look for tension and avoidance before assuming needs are met.

3️⃣ Training choices matter – Basic obedience or “just let them get over it” approaches rarely help. Instead, focus on meeting needs, building coping skills, and creating a safe, predictable environment.

Links & Resources from the Episode

🧾 For full episode transcripts: Arial | OpenDyslexic

🎧 Episode #120 - Why Your Pet Needs a Safe Space (and How to Make One)

📚 Gardening, Wasps, and Anxiety

✅ Let me sniff! Nosework induces positive judgment bias in pet dogs 

🎧 Episode #112 - Try It: Teach Your Dog "Find It" From Scratch

For the full episode show notes, including the resources mentioned in this episode, go here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Emily: give yourself and your, your, dog Grace because, I think a lot of people feel shame or guilt that they're not helping their dog or not doing enough for their dog. And I would like to remind you of what Allie said earlier. We all live with anxiety. All three of us, Allie, Ellen and I, I and I would say we have great quality of life. We have great skills, we have great coping mechanisms. I, I don't feel like I am in any way abused or neglected or. Um, Suffering because I live with anxiety. So give yourself some grace.

Give your dogs some grace. Allow yourselves to be the imperfect, unique, beautiful creatures that you are. Allow life to be imperfect and messy. Anxiety. It, it is what it is, right? That that doesn't mean that we shouldn't help and give support, but find the balance between trying to provide help and support and just living in the moment and accepting. Where you're at right now, where you and your dog are at right now?

[00:00:57] Allie: Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:01:15] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:16] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

in today's episode, Emily Ellen and I talk about is your dog buddy the elf? Is it play or is it anxiety? And sorry in advance for giving y'all anxiety about anxiety. Let's get to it.

We love all y'all's questions. We got a lot of questions this last time that were related to anxiety, and so we decided let's turn all the variations of the questions that we got into just an anxiety q and a episode. So thank you for submitting all those and we're gonna talk about anxiety today. So Ellen, what is the first conglomeration of questions?

[00:02:15] Ellen: All right. Our first question is, what is the difference between anxiety, fear, and reactivity? 

[00:02:19] Emily: I think the first two, anxiety and fear are pretty easy to contrast against each other because anxiety is the anticipation of bad things happening, whereas fear is a response to bad things happening. And I'm being very loose in my definitions because bad things is a really fuzzy phrase. But we can, we can roll with that. So anxiety is what happens before an event or a stimulus, and fear is what happens afterwards. So if you're anxious, you are anticipating something happening and it being awful and the sky fell. And if you're fearful, you are responding to something.

Copper. Our dog is a really good example of a fearful dog who's not anxious. Because he's a pretty solid guy. He, he's out there in the world. He likes to go do things. He likes to meet people and dogs. He's, he's never met a living creature that he doesn't wanna be friends with. But when a fan turns on, he has a big fear response to that. When we dare to leave wires exposed on the floor, he has a big fear response to wires or cords or cables. So he's not at all anxious, but he is fearful about specific objects. So he's a really good example of how a dog can be fearful but not anxious. And then conversely I have worked with some dogs at the Sanctuary.

We had a lot of dogs who just lived their life. Pretty convinced that the world was going to end at any moment. But then they. We couldn't identify anything in particular that they were afraid of. Um, They wouldn't have fear responses to anything, but they just lived their life in this like state of dread. So, um, those dogs were good examples of dogs who are anxious but not fearful. Reactivity is a little bit more complicated than that because reactivity is just an overreaction or a response to something in the environment. But that can happen for a lot of different reasons. It doesn't necessarily have to be rooted in anxiety or fear. It can be a learned behavior. It can be well rehearsed. So the dogs are just having a grand old time yelling at something and. They're not feeling any negative emotions. It can be a predatory response. Like, oh my gosh, there's that squirrel. I'm gonna go eat you squirrel. And so they're reacting to something that they want to catch or grab. those are good examples of what we call or good stress reactivity where they're not in distress. It's not fear, it's not anxiety it's not anger. It's something that they actually like and that's actually something that I've seen a lot In adolescent dogs who went through positive reinforcement uh, puppy classes where the classes taught them that like every human on earth is a pest dispenser, like every person they meet gives them snacks. Um, Then I would see a lot of these dogs come out of that and have towards strangers. Not 'cause they were afraid of strangers, but because they were like, Hey, you come here. Give me snacks. You owe me snacks. Every human gives me snacks. So, um, we had to deal with that a lot in one of the places where I, I was a behavior consultant because we had a, a, a couple facilities in the area who, that was how they socialized their puppies, and that's what I dealt with a lot of youth stress reactivity as a result of that. So reactivity doesn't have to necessarily be rooted in fear or anxiety, but it certainly can be. And, and oftentimes it is.

[00:05:49] Allie: And one of the things that I tell my clients and. I think for the purposes of this podcast episode, it's really important for us to actually define those terms. But one of the things that I tell my clients is I'm going to use those terms fairly interchangeably because at the end of the day, how I'm going to treat them is the same.

So that is often why when we're just casually talking, we'll use terms. Not necessarily with their correct definitions, but because from a a practitioner standpoint, we're going to treat them the same way, for the most part, not eustress. That's different.

[00:06:29] Ellen: for me, when we're talking about fear and anxiety, yes, there are times where those two things can be separate and we may not see evidence of one when we have evidence of the other, but more often than not, we're gonna see both in some way, shape, or form. And so it may feel like splitting hairs to try and say, is this anxiety or is this fear? Either way, we wanna do something about it. Probably you may not need to. For copper, it doesn't sound like his life is greatly impacted by the wires that you occasionally leave out on the ground. How dear. But when it comes to the, the eustress, I think what is functionAllie different for me is that learner was to acquire different things. So I'm looking at what is the consequence of. This thing that we are seeing, and it's gonna play a really big role in how we set up all of that environment. If fear and anxiety, the goal is to get distance from the thing to feel safe and secure, that is gonna be significantly more the thing that I'm focused on versus with that you stress eustress reactivity, I call it buddy the elf. The dog is just over on the other side of the street screaming, it's Santa and like it's very sweet and I love that for you. And it's way too much. We gotta tone it down. I might be looking more at other options, alternative forms of play. I might be looking at more choice, control and agency and predictability in the greeting sequence, all of those kinds of things. 

[00:07:49] Emily: I, I love that. Buddy, the elf analogy, because that's really what we were seeing with, with the EU stress reactivity is they're just over the top. So we have to, if we're thinking about this from an enrichment standpoint. The needs of a dog who's reacting because of fear or anxiety or both are going to be different than the needs of a dog who's a buddy?

The elf, right? One. We just need to teach them alternate ways to get what they want, teach them. Maybe sometimes this is not a place where that particular type of reinforcement is available, but this other type of reinforcement is available. Um, Perhaps teach them how to slow their role depending. Whereas with fear and anxiety, we're we're dealing a lot with safety, security moving away teaching them different coping mechanisms, stuff like that.

[00:08:37] Ellen: I think that segues nicely into the next question. how can I tell if my dog is anxious?

[00:08:41] Emily: Yeah, I, that is a good question. Because behavior is a study of one. But I think there are some really really important things to, to be aware of that across the board, regardless of. How your specific dog behaves. There are some things to consider and one of the things to consider is how tense your dog's body is. And tension can look different in different parts of the body. It can look like wrinkles on the forehead. It can look like the corners of their mouths are like a pointy V shape instead of a nice relaxed. C curve shape. It can look like the muscles look rock hard instead of kind of jiggly. So like it, you have to look at your dog's body and assess how tense they are. another thing to look for. Is whether or not they're looking at or looking towards something. So a lot of dogs can seem calm, but they are pointedly not looking at you or at a specific thing in their environment. And usually that kind of avoidance is indicative of anxiety. 

[00:09:49] Allie: I wanna go back to the behavior as a study of one. And this is so, so true for anxiety and I think one of the things that has helped my clients a lot with understanding that anxiety may not look like anxiety in their pets is understanding what it looks like for.

Either themselves or for somebody else in their life, and an example that I very frequently use. Is myself and my partner who both have anxiety and deal with it in incredibly different ways where mine turns me into a perfectionist workaholic and his turns him into a shutdown, do nothing person. We have essentiAllie completely opposite reactions to the same internal.

Feeling of anxiety, 

[00:10:45] Emily: and my anxiety actually looks like Katie kaboom. So like I don't, my anxiety looks different than yours and Alex's because when I get anxious, I get mad. So, so yeah, with the, that's different, but yes, you did set me up because my soapbox is, just because a dog is playing doesn't mean they're having fun.

Doesn't mean they're comfortable and relaxed just because a dog is performing a species typical behavior. Doesn't mean they are living their best doggy life. So, no, actually if just because a dog is doing a, her, a herding dog is doing hurting behaviors, that does not mean that they are living their best life. A lot of times. Dogs who are anxious or stressed or fearful who don't have better skills or coping mechanisms will fall back on an innate behavior. And they'll do that behavior because they are anxious and they have, they don't have any other way to respond or deal with their anxiety. And I think that is such an important thing to talk about and be aware of because a lot of people including, and especiAllie behavior professionals. Look at a dog who's playing or who's doing a species typical behavior. And there you go. Oh, see that dog is, their needs are met. They're living their best life. There's nothing wrong with this picture. We're good when the dog is really, really, really not good. And that's all I'm gonna say today because that topic is. Fodder for its own episode. We will at some point in the future, I am sure have an episode about that. So I'm not gonna go into more detail, but that's my baby soapbox. While we're talking about anxiety, is that sometimes anxiety does look like play, and sometimes anxiety does look like. A species typical behavior. That's why I put the emphasis on tension, because if they're playing but their body, they're wired, their body is super tense, or if they're doing their job, but they're super tense and also avoidant, then no. They're, that's not adaptive, that's not healthy, that's not safe. That's not an indication of needs being met. So that's a teaser for a future deeper dive into that topic. But I had to say it here because we're talking about anxiety and how to recognize it.

[00:12:50] Ellen: I think the thing that we see so often is an assumption that species typical is the end all be all. There are still times where that is entirely species typical. It is entirely adaptive, and when I am responsible for this individual's welfare and wellbeing, that needs to not be the end all be all, because it is very adaptive to have effects flight or freeze response. When your body is telling you that you are in actual grave and mortal danger, even if it's just an email, you're fine. It is very adaptive and it is still. Undesirable. And if I had somebody who was building a welfare and wellbeing care plan for me, I would like them to look at that and be like, you don't need to have that fight, flight, or freeze response. Even though it is evolutionary beneficial the way that you are exhibiting that is species typical, maybe, I don't know. I'll study humans the same way I study others. I would still want them to take it seriously and think about it. So it might be something like, we have a dog who. Frenetically has to put its mouth on something when stressor enters the environment. Might be adaptive, might be something that is totAllie, totAllie fine. We have to look and assess, did it actually do the thing for that dog or are we seeing an escalation? This didn't work, so I'm gonna bite something else. I'm gonna bite something else. I'm gonna bite something else. I'm gonna buy something else harder. Rinse and repeat.

[00:14:05] Emily: Yeah, that misinterpretation of behavior is something that grieves me deeply because when it reminds me of a quote and I can't remember who said it, but the. I'm gonna also butcher the quote because if I could remember who said it, I could probably remember the quote better. But the, the, the gist of it is um, the greatest obstacle to understanding is the illusion.

It's Daniel. It's Daniel Borson. The greatest obstacle to discovery is the illusion of knowledge. That's what I'm thinking of, of that. Like, if you think you know that the dog is okay, you're not going to continue exploring with curiosity how that dog is actually feeling and what their experience actually is.

And that's the, the, the part really grieves me. So that's an important thing to, to dive into.

[00:14:49] Ellen: And you know, because I work with a lot of anxious clients. Maybe it would behoove us to look at the opposite as well. So we listed a lot of anxiety and things that could be anxiety, which I don't know if you are anything like me who also has anxiety. You may be like, oh my God, my dog exists. They obviously have all the anxiety and I'm a terrible pet parent.

I'm not doing anything right, and all of the things. So are there some things that we might tell people to. Take a deep breath, observe. Look for these. It's good.

[00:15:18] Emily: Yeah, there's also that what is it called? I started to say the Myers-Briggs Effect, and that's not it. There's a cognitive bias where once you learn about something, you see it everywhere. And I now, now all I can think is Myers-Briggs. 

That's.

That's definitely not it. But anyway, there's a cognitive bias where once you learn about something, you see it everywhere. And I think that you, to your point Ellen, that the opposite where of people not, not recognizing anxiety when it's happening is that when people first learn how to see anxiety or a maladaptive behaviors or anything like. That then they see it everywhere, even in places that it doesn't exist. And so then you have people who, like every time a dog pauses in play to take a a break, they're like, oh, it's a freeze. We gotta separate them because they're freezing, they're feeling, you know, or every time a dog like has been playing and snarling and is slobbery and they like take a break to lip their lick, their lips, people are like, oh my God, it's a lip lick. The dog is anxious. It's like, no, the dog is. Sloppy and they're just cleaning up after themselves. So yeah, that's a really good point, Ellen, that we also have to be mindful of that that opposite response where people are seeing anxiety where it doesn't exist, and that happens too. And again, it's missing the mark on meeting those animals' actual needs.

Right. 

[00:16:32] Allie: And this is something that I was actually just talking about yesterday with uh, one of our pet pro mentees in a group coaching call of. W when is it okay to just say it's good enough? And remembering that e especially so many people in the animal welfare space have anxiety themselves. I, there's, there's just some sort of correlation there that someone needs to do a study on, but remembering that it's like I also have anxiety and I'm all right.

I'm, I'm living a pretty decent life and so if oso experiences anxiety at some point in time, it's okay. It's not that the world has, has gone to hell in a hand basket because of that.

[00:17:18] Emily: I just need to say I remembered it's Bader Meinhof, so they, what? The Bader Meinhof and Myers-Briggs both have an m and a b and a hyphen, so I, I was close, my brain was close, but it's the Bader Moff effect I remembered.

[00:17:31] Ellen: And I think that's another important thing to remember, that there are times where we're going to have like a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder or something along those lines, and we see that impact the entirety of the existence. And then there are gonna be times where like I was um, accosted by bugs last year doing some gardening.

For those of you that haven't read my blog already, I had 70 something mosquito bites and three wasp stings. you can't see Emily's face, she feels for me. I still had to go do a, I had a bunch of stuff on my list to go do, and you better believe that. Until this year, I would go out and I would go be in that same general area, and I would feel my heart rate increase.

I could feel the tension in my body. I could feel anxiety around that area, even knowing that we had professionals come take care of the problem for us because um, I, no thank you. No, thank you. But this year, as I am out there, the anxiety is still not there. But you better believe that when I hear a little buzz, buzz near my ear, I am out of there. I am up, I have dropped everything. I am 10 feet away, and then I can pause and think, was that, was that reasonable? The answer is, I don't know yet because anxiety, but I, I'm okay. It's all right if I have a little anxiety. Gardening in a specific part of my yard because I actually had an event that warrants that level of caution versus my pillow touching me in the middle of the night tells me I need to go take care of my nervous system. There's a difference.

[00:19:03] Emily: I think you just beautifully demonstrated anxiety and fear, right? Because the anxiety was the anticipation of the mosquitoes and the wasps being in that part of your yard. And then the buzz sound, that reaction to that buzzing sound is a fear response. Right? So that's a really good example of those two different things and how they interplay. Yeah.

[00:19:23] Ellen: And that I think is probably a good segue as all of us grown adults talk about our anxiety. Will my dog grow out of anxiety? And if you haven't gathered, the short answer is no.

[00:19:35] Emily: No, I can tell you why some people think that some animals grow out of anxiety. Let's start with the kernel of truth, to acknowledge why that perception exists. That perception exists because sometimes there are events that may cause an animal temporary anxiety or fear, and it's not about their nervous system.

It's not about their neurochemistry. It's about a like a single event learning situation. And then. As they continue to live their lives, something happens. Either habitation happens or desensitization happens, or some other type of counterconditioning happens. So that that single event, scary thing. No longer becomes scary to them. That is true. That does happen and that is why a lot of people think that an animal or a person will grow out of anxiety because I'm sure all of us have experienced somebody, some type of living, sentient being who have gone through that process at some point. But that's very different than when we're talking about anxiety as a feature of your.

Biological makeup as a, a neurochemical imbalance or as a result of some complex interplay between genetics and prenatal and learning environment and critical socialization, period, all those things, behavior's complex. There's a lot of contributing factors to behavior and if, if we are anxious creatures, we're not going to grow out of that. 

[00:21:06] Allie: And I think in addition to the phenomenon that you were describing, we also. As we age, find different ways to express our anxiety based on the situation. So it might be that you have anxiety about one situation and you act a certain way because of that. And then as you grow and learn, you learn that there is a better coping behavior in that situation that may look like it's resolved itself, but in actuality, you've just found a different coping behavior.

[00:21:37] Ellen: And it's hard because over time we gain skills too. So very rarely are we going to have it probably never. ' cause learning is always happening. At some level, but very rarely are we ever going to find that we are in the exact same environment. Exact same. No, never. Because your body changes over time. So no two days are ever going to be the same. You're going to have different conditions over time. So I think, I don't remember what podcast episode it was. Oh, it was the safe space one that I'll link in the show notes. Emily was talking about how very specificAllie the desert led to more anxiety just in general life and moving out of the desert, decreased general anxiety in life. So would we say that you grew out of anxiety? No. 'cause you still got the anxiety. It's just different in this current location. And also you are, what was that like 10 years ago? No, little less.

[00:22:32] Emily: It's 10 years since I lived in the high desert, and then Northern Utah's, not really desert, it's like semi arid, bordering on like the plains, the Great Plains. So it, it was easier ish, but still

not yeah, yeah. No. But it's been about 10 years since I lived in the actual desert.

Yeah. 

[00:22:50] Ellen: but you're a different person on a cellular level, you're an entirely different person. Back to you're never the same. Two days in a row. But you've also acquired new skills. You have learned new information, and we would see that with our, our non-human learners too.

[00:23:04] Emily: Absolutely. Yeah. So I think that's like we can, we can. Acknowledge that anxiety can be contextual and that anxiety changes because we change and our environment changes. But anxiety is not something that you can just wait it out and hope it'll go away. If your dog has that sort of like. Ephemeral, highly contextual, anxious response to something because of a specific event. You might get lucky, but I would not put all my eggs in that basket. I would never be like, it'll probably be fine. I would take it seriously because the more proactive we are the, the faster and more effectively we reduce harm and increase welfare and wellbeing. Right.

[00:23:47] Ellen: Yep. Which I think takes us to what training helps an anxious dog.

[00:23:51] Emily: I dunno. I have no idea because it really

depends on what type of anxiety your dog has, what your dog's reality is, what their environment is, what your reality is, what resources you have available to you, what other issues your dog may be experiencing. I can't tell you what kind of training you're, you need for your dog's anxiety because we don't know anything about your specific situation. So the answer is. Work with a behavior professional, preferably us. I may be biased, but I feel like if you listen to our podcast and you want behavior help, we are a shoe in, right? Right. We would love to work with you but work with a behavior professional. I just need you all to know that Allie is dying right now. Allie is cracking up so hard at me. I'm not sorry. I do not apologize for, for, for what I am

Allie. But yeah, work with a behavior professional who can help you assess your situation comprehensively deeply, and figure out what your dog's unmet needs are, and what your unmet needs are, and what resources you have available to you and can help you come up with a plan that's actually going to be effective and supportive of everybody involved. That's my answer to that question.

[00:25:04] Allie: I am done laughing and now I can provide my answer. I don't, I don't know why. I don't know why that that elicited the reaction it did for me, but it did. Yeah. So as far as what to do, absolutely what Emily said. I don't know. I don't know you or your dog or your household or your situation. I would have to ask 90 minutes worth of questions in order to do that, and that's not possible in this space of a podcast episode where you can't answer my questions.

I can ask them, but I don't get to hear the answers because this is a one way communication platform you can send us emails. I still can't answer 90 minutes worth of emails for that. Anywho, I can tell you however, what will probably not help. So let's do the, what training not to do is gonna be the, an, the question that I answer.

Obedience or basic manners training is probably not going to help your dog. And I know that's. That's maybe an inflammatory statement. I don't care. I'm on a soapbox right now, y'all, because I so, so frequently get clients. And I feel so bad for them where they're like, I went through this training class, I worked on this uh, basic manners thing, or whatever it is, and they're like, my, my dog is perfect in the home and normal everyday life, et cetera.

They know so much. I've put so much work into basic manners training, and we are still having this anxiety problem. It's like. Yeah, because basic manners doesn't address anxiety, and I just feel so badly for them that they have spent so much time, energy, bandwidth, resources, money, sometimes on the wrong kind of training.

So basic manners and obedience. I'll go to go, I will die on this hill. That is likely not going to help your animal. I know that all my years of schooling and having a degree has not helped my anxiety in the slightest. The other type of training that will likely not help You know, we talk about it a lot on this podcast and our resources, all of that. And by flooding we mean we're putting an individual into a situation in which they cannot leave and they are uncomfortable with the situation.

It's a little bit more nuanced than that. And also that's the definition I'm gonna go with for right now. 'cause it works for our purposes in this context. And that is primarily what I see people doing when they're trying to do this on their own, or DIY, this, um, and the one that y'all, it, it kills me every time I see it.

And I know this is like the standard go-to for pet parents who don't know how to handle reactivity with their dog. Uh, so been there, done, there, done that, got that t-shirt. I've done this too, but it now kills me. Now that I know better is. Asking your dog to sit and watch the scary thing pass by. Ugh. It kills me.

They, they can't leave, they can't handle themselves. And they're just asked to like be there and be like, well, maybe I die today. I don't know. And as an anxious human being who understands that feeling, that's a hard place to be in. So, keep in mind that while we talk a lot about flooding. In, in our resources, in our content, and a lot of times we use extreme examples. It is very, very common in everyday life for us to see examples of it in situations in which somebody is trying to help.

[00:28:46] Emily: I'm gonna add two things to that. The first is if somebody tells you. That because your dog is a certain breed, this anxiety is just how they are and they, you do just need to keep them restrained and let the bad thing happen and get it over with, because if they're a German Shepherd, for example, they're just going to be anxious.

They're going to be reactive, so you just restrain them. First of all, that's not true. That's not how behavior works. Secondly, that is still flooding. Thirdly, run as fast and as far as you can from that person and hire somebody else. Okay, that's my first thing. The second thing is there may be some of you who are like, but I have done flooding before and it did work, or, but I have done basic manners before and it did work, and I wanna say, I believe you. Because there are very specific situations under which you might see improvement in individual animals by doing those procedures. And we don't have the time in this episode to talk about why sometimes those things do work or appear to work. But first of all, those, those, the percentage of success with those strategies is pretty low and they're under very specific conditions. And secondly, what we're defining as working often might work for us, but isn't working for the dog, it's still not working for the dog. So we're still not meeting needs, even when it looks like it's working for us. It's only working for us, it's not working for the dog. So I just wanted to put that out there because I, I am absolutely sure, I would bet money that there are some people listening to this episode saying, well, but I have had that experience where it did work and your experience is valid.

And also there are lots of reasons why that's still not a route we're going to take. Um, And again, we don't have time to di dive deeply into the whys of that in this episode, but I, again, I just have to put that out there. I need to acknowledge that in this episode.

[00:30:41] Allie: I would say common skills that do help is something that we can talk about and provides an approximation to an answer Somebody's looking for.

[00:30:50] Ellen: so on that, but my basic manners did help. I think there are some elements of that that we can take away and provide here. So One of the things that can be very, very helpful is. Scent work, nose work, getting your dog using their nose. That has been shown in many, many papers. Not just one, I'll put one in the thing. But if we can get the dog using their nose, sometimes we can see that we start to see a shift from I'm place and I don't know where it, where I am.

And this is terrible 'cause obviously everything new is terrible for me. Uh, Pessimists don't. Pessimism is what we typicAllie call it in humans. They labeled it negative judgment bias too. You know, I don't have a frame of reference for this, but maybe it won't be bad. I'll give it a chance to tell me whether or not it's gonna be bad before I make that assumption, which we would maybe label optimism or positive judgment.

Bias it. So scent work is one of the skills that you can invest in. I typicAllie don't consider that in capital T training. I know that sometimes we do need to do capital T training in order to acquire that skill. A lot of dogs, you can throw food and they're gonna start the sniffing. so I will, in the show notes, put a link to a podcast episode from maybe last season where Emily walks you through step-by-step, how to teach a dog to search for food on the ground. We label it, find it. A label is a label. You can call it whatever use of desire. The other things that I think are really. really really That's really helpful in just like that dog human bond. And why we might see some of that benefit in the basic obedience or uh, basic manners or any of those things is we're building a system of communication. So I think investing in both your dog being able to see you and understand what is happening and you respond to your dog is going to be something that is very, very valuable.

And that can be through very basic things like what you may see in basic manners. But I wouldn't necessarily expect that to quote unquote fix the anxiety. It is more laying a foundation so you and your dog are going to be exceptionAllie well-suited when and or if there is something that you need to do specific for that anxiety. 

[00:32:52] Emily: I think my parting thought is give yourself and your, your, dog Grace because, I think a lot of people feel shame or guilt that they're not helping their dog or not doing enough for their dog. And I would like to remind you of what Allie said earlier. We all live with anxiety. All three of us, Allie, Ellen and I, I Allie's partner. My partner. And I would say we have great quality of life. We have great skills, we have great coping mechanisms. I, I don't feel like I am in any way abused or neglected or. Suffering because I live with anxiety. Allow yourselves to be the imperfect, unique, beautiful creatures that you are. Allow life to be imperfect and messy. Anxiety. It, it is what it is, right? That that doesn't mean that we shouldn't help and give support, but find the balance between trying to provide help and support and um, just living in the moment and accepting. Where you're at right now, where you and your dog are at right now?

[00:33:51] Ellen: I'll also add that. anxiety is normal. There is an element of anxiety that is normal. It is adaptive. It is part of what has kept many species alive for. A bigger timeframe than my little tiny human brain can truly comprehend. So there is an element of it that is adaptive. It is normal. It is something that is part of the normal lived experience. It is not something that we want to necessarily prevent and inhibit That is taking away the opportunity to live a full life. If you're like, I don't, this is a lot of pressure to know, is this full and normal or is this. Not good. Do I need to do something? Do I just let it be? Do I have skills? Do I not have skills? If you have yourself asking any of those questions, you don't need to wait until you have a very specific well divined issue to work with a behavior consultant. So I have a lot of clients that come to me and they're like, I just don't know how concerned I should be about this. And we talk through like, here are the contingencies where I'm like, no, we really, I would. I would urge you to continue to work on this versus it sounds like this was an acute situation. They got stung by a bee outside and for the next three months they were like, mm, but are you sure it's okay? And now they're going out and they're rolling in the grass and they're having a great time.

And you see that loose body language and all of those things. We can absolutely build skills so the next time something scary happens, we have a better suite to help that recovery go faster. But. That's not, that's normal. It's okay. They're afraid of going outside after getting stung by a bee, and then you're gonna meet a dog who can get stung by many bees and will still not be afraid of going outside. So the continuum exists, but you don't have to have a really really serious problem to work with a behavior consultant. Sometimes we're just here to help you Fines. How much attention you need to be giving to any different situation to meet your goals and the type of life you want with your animal.

[00:35:42] Emily: And I do wanna say I have to throw Miley in 'cause I have to talk about Miley Miley's, one of the least anxious creatures I met. I wish she was a little more anxious. I, I joke all the time that she has a death wish because I'm constantly just trying to keep her alive. And also I. We had an emergency yesterday and I had to leave her outside for six hours and I came home and she was. A little panicked. And so today, even though she's the least anxious creature on the planet today, I'm being really careful about when I leave her alone, how I leave her alone, giving her signals to let her know if I'm gonna be gone for a short time or a long time, because I'm still working to prevent that anxiety from, from developing. Um, Because we had a, a terrible experience yesterday and I wanna protect her. So, so, you know, it's. It's just a part of life. Anxiety is a part of life, right?

[00:36:31] Ellen: What I think is the most meta about this is. Talking about anxiety, we have just given so many listeners anxiety about anxiety, like this is, I'm so sorry. And also take a deep breath. I hope you're okay. I take care of yourself. And with that lovely realization of the harm that we may have just caused I many people the last question was, can you train anxiety out of a dog?

[00:36:55] Emily: I don't know. I think the answer is no. What you can do instead is, is what we've kind of mentioned several times throughout this episode, is you can give them coping mechanisms, you can meet their needs. Because anytime we as living sentient beings have our needs met and we're well supported, everything's just a little bit easier.

So we can reduce anxiety through meeting needs. I think I'm repeating myself, but giving them coping skills, teaching them how to, to self-regulate um, and we can give them skills because empowered beings are typicAllie less anxious beings. So you can't get rid of anxiety, but you can give learners the tools to navigate their own anxiety and to reduce it. That's, that's my thought.

[00:37:37] Ellen: I agree and pet parent. This also includes you if you find that you need some help because you're feeling anxious around your dog's behavior. Sometimes you just need somebody to say, you have all these skills. You have already taught your dog. All of these things that you can do. You know these things fill your dog's cup. Let's just make sure that you have the queue to do those at the right time.

[00:37:56] Allie: All right, so that is our q and a episode for today. Thank you all for listening.

 I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony. 

as a special thank you for listening Until the end of this episode, Here is a special enrichment tip for you.

[00:39:03] Ellen: Sniffing is magic. It's not magic, it's science, but get your dog using their nose.

[00:39:08] Emily: Sniffing is magical science.

Oh yeah. I went there.

[00:39:11] Allie: So your enrichment tip is. When in doubt, throw treats at it with all of the asterisks caveats that make that statement safe.