Dogs Seem To Have It Pretty Easy Right?
Napping all day, getting cuddled, loved and chasing after birds sounds like a pretty nice life, but even with such a perfect daily routine, our fur friends still experience stress. Stress is the body’s response to any change that requires an alteration. The body responds to these progressions with physical, mental, and emotional reactions, in other words, stress can manifest itself due to your environment, body, and thoughts.
Considering your dog can’t speak to you to tell you they’re stressed, you need to be made aware of some warning signs that come along with stress. We’ve come up with the top five most common signs. Bonus: we’ve also found a solution for you!
Isolation
Some dogs will seclude themselves when stressed. It’s a way for them to get a break, but can also be a way for them to get away from what is stressing them out. Similarly to humans, sometimes they too need some space to reset their mind and try to overcome stress on their own. If you notice frequent isolation it’s time to look more into it and seek medical help.
Excessive Sleep
A dog needs between 12-14 hours of sleep each and every day. Although, this can fluctuate depending on your dog’s daily activities, keep in mind, the more exercise, the more rest they’ll need. With that in mind, if you notice your pooch has no interest in participating in activities and would rather sleep, it’s time to increase cuddle time because they’re probably stressed.
Loss Of Appetite
Noticeable loss of appetite is never a good thing. What’s difficult is that it could be due to a long list of things and not just stress. To make it easier to identify, if you notice loss of appetite combined with the other mentioned signs, it’s probably stress. No matter what, if the loss of appetite persists, visit your vet to ensure it’s not due to any alarming medical issue.
Aggression
A change in behavior is very common when it comes to stress, most specifically, aggressive behavior. As a form of defense mechanism, your pooch might show some unfriendly behavior towards you. When this presents itself, try to give your pup some alone time to decompress and process their feelings. After some time alone, give them some love and reassurance, that usually does the trick. Think of it as a parent’s touch, parents always make you feel better no matter how old you are.
Barking
As previously mentioned, barking is a form of aggression. Considering barking is one of the only ways your dog can communicate with you, be attentive to it regularly, so that if there’s ever any contrast between barks you’ll know. If the barking sounds more like whining, it’s most likely related to stress.
Magical Potion
Having a stressed dog can be also very stressful for the human. It’s aggravating to not be able to determine how to help your fur best friend. Luckily, a brand new product has just reached the market and it has everything you could dream of, and that is the new AlphaPaw Calming Diffuser for Dogs. This device is completely drug free and clinically proven to reduce anxiety and any stress related behavior. It uses pheromones to create a natural comfort that mimic a mother’s natural nursing scent. It’s super easy to use, all you need is an outlet to plug it into, just like that, the calming oils will start diffusing any stress nearby!
