28/10/2022
I NEED TO FEEL SAFE
Feeling safe is a basic need for most living creatures, including us.
When we think about feeling safe it’s natural to just think about not being harmed or being in danger, but it’s not just about the physical aspect – feeling safe emotionally and psychologically is just as relevant. While physical safety may be obvious and perhaps somewhat simpler to address, emotional safety is far more complex and not always that easy to identify. The same applies to our dogs – they are sentient beings whose behaviour is very often driven by an emotion.
Many behaviour problems that we see in dogs stem from the basic need to feel safe. A dog that lunges and barks or behaves aggressively with another dog or person is likely doing so because they feel unsafe and want the scary thing to go away. A dog that is guarding resources is doing so because they are afraid that the resource will be taken away – they don’t feel safe when another animal or person approaches that resource. A dog that is reacting to fireworks or thunderstorms or other noises is doing so because they don’t feel safe. The same can be said for separation anxiety, certain types of aggression and other behaviours.
We can help our dogs feel safe by acknowledging their fear even if that fear doesn’t make sense to us. We can be a source of comfort, predictability, allow them to make choices where we can, never force them to face a fear, never use punishment but positively reinforce their good choices, all while doing what we can through management, desensitisation or counter conditioning to help them improve. Some dogs may not improve, but doing what we can to help dogs feel safer in our world is the least we can do.
