Have you recently adopted a rescue dog and they are quite shy and nervous?
Then this video is for you!
Due to their past trauma, rescue dogs can easily get anxious. It's important to be able to
recognise if your dog becomes overwhelmed. Do you know what arousal is? It's a state of alertness,
it's how responsive your dog is to events coming either from you or from the environment.
The problem is that too much arousal negatively impacts the behaviour and well-being of your dog,
and it can take up to three days to completely level out. That's why it's very important to
actually be able to reduce the level of arousal. You have to think of it as a bucket: every time
your dog faces a stressful situation the bucket fills, and the more it gets closer to the top
the more your dog is getting closer to being over threshold or over aroused as we call it. If your
dog becomes overwhelmed, it's very important to bring the level of arousal down, so you should
just basically try and keep them calm and avoid stressful situations for the next three days.
If your dog was stressed or had a bad encounter with a dog during a walk for example, you
should try and avoid presenting them with strong stress for the next three days.
It might mean not taking them outside for walks if there's a risk that they encounter stress
again. It's absolutely fine - I know a lot of people think that they have to go on walks with
their dog to tire them and give them exercise, but it's actually fine to have other activities,
scent games are great, and enrichment as well - that stimulates your dog just as much as walks.
Think about it, when you rescue arrives at your home they are more than likely over threshold due
to all the different experiences that they had: they had the car ride, they're meeting new people,
new house, new environment, that's why it's very important to give them a lot of quiet time.
Another thing that is very important is to be able to recognise stress signals in your rescue dog. A
dog basically uses calming signals to communicate they are stressed out and uncomfortable,
and if you're able to recognise those signs of stress you can really help de-escalate a situation
before your dog becomes even more uncomfortable. Dogs might escalate, and escalation can mean in
some cases a bite, if the stress signals are not heard, so it really is very important. Especially
if you have kids interacting with your rescue dog at home: it's absolutely crucial to supervise and
ideally if they are old enough, educate your kids to recognise those signs too. Some examples of
calming signals. You have the lip licking, where your dog licks his lip or his nose, a shake off,
I'm sure you have seen that a lot, the paw lift, it looks like giving the paw except it
can be really subtle. Stretching, looking away, and they can also turn their whole body if it's
more stressful, pacing, sniffing can be a calming signal as well. Scratching, yawning, blinking,
sneezing. Another one: wagging the tail. We hear a lot: if a dog is wagging their tail,
they are happy... not all the time... It really depends how they are actually wagging it:
if the tail is loose, he is probably very happy, but if it's stiff or tense, he's probably not, and
he's probably thinking of reacting to something. Obviously those are not always stress signs,
you need to actually look at the whole picture and consider the context. If you see your rescue
dog licking their nose or lip or yawning, just ask yourself: "is there something happening
at the moment or a second ago that could be stressful?" The more you're going to do that,
the more you will be able to recognise the signs. Sometimes your dog will lick their
lip because they smell food, or they will yawn because they are tired, but you just need to
be aware of the stress signs and if you see some think for a second "is there anything?
no it's just because he's tired or because he's smelling food". Just think about the whole
context and also if you start seeing more signs: if he's yawning that's fine,
if he's blinking that's fine, but if he's blinking every three seconds, there might be something. It
really depends on the frequency and think about the whole picture of what is going on. I hope
you enjoyed the content of this video and if you need more help, rescue dogs are my tribe
that's why I really want to help you and I offer 15 minute consultations to new rescue dog owners,
just like you. You can book yours, it's completely free, you just go to the link
that is at the top of the screen right now and i hope to talk to you soon. Bye!