반려견의 두려움 이해하기 (1부): 유전학, 트라우마, 그리고 반려견의 웰빙 #팟캐스트 #236

that's bred to look out for the bad guys and protect those sheep the guardian breeds are going to be just more confident so genetics the breed of dog will play a role in how confident they are or how much fear that they will show now within each breed you're going to see wide variation I've seen fearful golden retrievers generally you see very confident golden retrievers the gamut is with in each breed so is it supposed to be that way probably not but there's some great breeders there's some not so great breeders and guess what there's some just stuff happens within any breed so it could be your dogs spere period it could be the genetics of the breed it could also be what's called generational trauma something that happened to one or another parent that gets passed down and there's actually been studies on this where they did these studies with rats where they fed rats watermelon and shocked them when they were eating the watermelon okay that's kind of mean I know but they did that enough so that when rats smelled watermelon they got incredibly anxious they wanted nothing to do with watermelon and they were you know breaking out in a cold sweat for a rat whatever those physical signs of stress were in the rat now here's the interesting part of the study they then took those rats who if they just smelt watermelon they had a meltdown and they bred them to completely normal rats and The Offspring were also afraid of the smell of watermelon they did this a second generation with those rats who had never even been exposed to the shock and the watermelon they bred them to other healthy rats and guess what the fear of the watermelon was also passed down so why would that be because there are things that if they can hurt us we need to be aware of and generationally we're wired to not have to experience that ourselves because you know we might die so that's how generational trauma can get pasted in the DNA whether it's fears that make sense or fears that don't make sense they can still be passed along so related to genetics but not necessarily strictly genetics number four would be the lack of proper Early Education from the time that the puppies were born all the way up until they were 8 nine 10 weeks old and they went to their new homes now they actually have shown that puppies raised in a deprived environment meaning weren't given proper stimulation proper socialization proper exposures to different sounds and touches and experiences those puppies will always grow into be jumpier adults amongst other things so dogs that are you know like feral raised under a shed and never even come in contact with

humans obviously they have horrific fears where humans are concerned but even if they're raised with humans but they just aren't given a very very good Early Education those dogs will be jumpier now there is unfortunate incidences that happen to dogs and that can lead to fears for example if a puppy is jumped or badly beaten up by a certain dog they may develop phobias and fears to maybe dogs of that color or dogs of that breed it doesn't mean just because your puppy was jumped they're going to have this fear my dog Swagger was very badly beaten up when he was 6 months old by a mostly black border colly and I worked very hard over the next 6 months to help him overcome that incident and he grew up to be an adult dog who had no problem with any dog of any color or any breed he's just a great dog who gets along with other dogs however abuse at the hands of humans people that the dog should trust abuse could just be like a lot of yelling or Screaming or ranting or worse like throwing things or hitting etc etc abuse could lead to fears that are what you're seeing in your animal now may or may not be real so if you have a rescue dog and your dog is say afraid of tall men don't immediately assume that that dog was abused chances are it wasn't chances are it's one of those other things that I've already mentioned so what happens is when people get a rescue dog and the dog shows fear of something people make up these stories in their head and that holds the dog back from getting help that holds you back from working any further because you've decided oh that's what it is I don't have to do anything no I'm giving you these list of reasons of why you might be seeing not so that you can say well guess that's it I don't have to do anything just to explain the basis of what you might be seeing it really isn't that relevant to the steps we're going to be taking afterwards I just find it behavior in general is super interesting okay number six reason number six and this is one that I bet many of you have never heard of and that is there are medical conditions that will increase what you will see in fear for example thyroid any kind of a thyroid problem could present as a sudden onset fear as can believe it or not bladder or kidney infections can also have a sudden onset fear to the point where a dog may shake or be afraid of things they previously were never afraid of before so there are other medical conditions I just gave you two that could make your dog afraid of things they weren't afraid of before and number seven and I don't want to scare you if you have a female dog that has been spayed spaying can actually

increase fear anxiety and reactivity in female dogs now the reason is when you spay a female you have taken away their hormones two very important hormones oxytocin estrogen are responsible for the dog feeling confident and happy and when you take away their sex organs you drastically diminish both of those hormones and the other thing that happens is you increase something called the luteinizing hormone and that's the hormone that tells the dog's sex organs to release their eggs okay we're about to go through our cycle now Boom the brain sends the message down through the body gets down to the ovaries to let's get going Let's Get Busy once an animal's been spayed then there's nothing there to turn off that luteinizing hormone and it has been suggested in research that it's not only responsible for increased fear anxiety and reactivity it potentially also a spay female may have 30 times the LH production that an unspayed would and that could be responsible for heightened level of various different kinds of cancers as well so what can you do it doesn't mean you're doomed if you have a female that's been spayed you can talk to your veterinarian about getting hormone replacement for your female if you are seeing the the symptoms of increased agitation anxiety aggression okay the last three reasons why we may be seeing fear in dogs and these three again may be things you have not considered number one you've heard me talk about this a lot and that is nutrition if you refer to podcast number 203 and 204 where I talk about my young dog this and how she had so much fear so much anxiety as a youngster and how almost overnight it was diminished by at least half when I changed her food the gut brain relationship is very well known both in dogs and particularly in humans and so if the dog's microbiome is not a good one then it absolutely could be responsible for the fear that you're seeing in your dog so what I did with thisy is number one I decreased the level of protein she was getting increase the level of green leafy vegetables in the form of a smoothie fruits and starchy vegetables and of course really good omega-3's fats now this could be a little controversial and if you are a part of the farming Community I raise my hands to you however food production today is about getting the biggest yields the most production and products and produce that are the most resistant to the chemicals that get put put on our food it is not about how digestible that food is in our guts or in our dog's guts so that could also be contributing to why our dog's nutrition isn't the same as it possibly was previously okay reason number two

that may not be considered and that is the electrical environment that our dogs are living in today now dogs are definitely very very sensitive to energies if you've ever put a magnetic coat on a dog I've seen so many different responses just in my own dogs over the past 30 years when I've put any kind of magnetic coat or coat that has energy going through it even red light therapy on my dogs some dogs completely relax with it some dogs freeze up they definitely are more sensitive to it than humans are so think of how many electromagnetic frequencies are now surrounding our own environments yes there's things like fluorescent lights dimmer switches actually add to electromagnetic the emfs in your environment things like Hey Siri or hey Google or Alexa all of these things that are in our environments that never were before there is a theory that those emfs are playing a role in how our dogs process things through their brain process what they are seeing in their environment and how they express those processed feelings in their emotional states in their fearfulness in their reactivity okay the 10th thing I want you to consider about fear in your dogs is you this is a biggie and I have a video if you're listening to this podcast I want you to jump over to YouTube because I'm going to share a video that I promise you I have been given permission to share because it is a little bit of a personal video and I'm going to share video of Kim walking belief now Kim as many of you know works here at dog at Central works here with me has worked here for 9 years so I know her very very well she lives here with me 4 days of the week and then she goes home for three days a week so I've gotten to know Kim extremely well over the years and I know she has some anxieties in life hey don't we all one of them for Kim is an extreme fear of heights now it's something I don't understand I don't have a fear of heights but I've gotten to understand Kim's fear a little bit better in that if she's walking over over a high height for example we walked the canopy in the rainforest when we were in Costa Rica it was I don't know how many meters above the ground it we were way up in the air but below Were Trees we were walking along the Treetops and therefore she wasn't afraid however when we were walking in Italy along a Cliff's Edge where there was a barrier up it didn't matter there was an edge that she could see and there weren't trees below she was paralyzed dropped to the ground she couldn't move why am I telling you about this because recently Kim and I were hiking in Quebec City and I had two of my dogs with me momentum and this and

she was walking belief we came to a part where we had to walk across a suspension bridge a suspension bridge is there's two big anchors and then there's nothing below that's holding that bridge meaning it just kind of wobbles a little bit while you walk and it's way up above the ground and you can see a valley below I think there was a small River below we got to that bridge and I said to Kim we can turn around if you want she goes no no no no I did this in Costa Rica I can pretend that there's trees below at that time there was nobody else around in that Park so I walked across first and I waited and Kim took her time and she made it across no problem her and belief were fine now on the way back at the end of her walk the park was crowded and she had more anxiety she said what if I get there and I have to pass somebody I can't go to an edge I have to stay in the middle I said they'll understand Kim just ask them to go around and I said to her do you want me to take belief with me and she said no no no no I'll be fine so as she started on the walk as you can see in this video she was feeding belief she wasn't super confident herself but she was feeding belief and walking along and then when people started to approach Kim got more anxious she brought her hands to her temples to try to block out the view of the sides and then you won't be able to hear it on the video but she started to make an audible noise of somebody who is afraid ah H she started to make this noise as she was walking along with each symptom she showed to me the third one being her steps got very short and stiff with each of these three symptoms I saw beliefs body language change as well beliefs temp change her tail got lower her body got roacher she started dropping to the ground she was feeling the fear that Kim was demonstrating now this isn't news to anybody I've talked about Dr bagio in Italy at the University of Naples where he proved that dogs can sense happy and they can sense terrified and I talked about this in podcast number 6 too and belief demonstrated this beautifully and once Kim saw that she was able to realize that there are things I can do so you can't overcome your fears overnight but you can stop talking about them as if they have control on you you can start talking in a confident way to your dogs you don't feed your dog's fear with your own anxiety about those fear years so now in times when Kim might think belief would be worried instead of going oh she's going to do this she'll go come on BB we're going to go here we're going to do this she talks in a very confident way I've seen a shift in

Kim and that's one thing you can do okay so to wrap up today we have 10 reasons why your dog might be showing signs of fear here's what I'd like you to do to prepare for the next episode number one recognize what is your dog's t temp what does your dog look like when they are in complete homeostasis when they are the most relaxed the most content what does that look like and just know that a dog's tail wagging super fast doesn't mean that they're happy a dog flipping upside down and wagging their tail doesn't always mean that they want their belly rubbed it could mean that they're very worried about you and they're just showing a little bit of anxiety now my dog momentum she flips upside down and wags her tail a lot she definitely wants her belly rubbed but not all dogs are showing that so know your dog write down complete homeostasis this is what it looks like when my dog is alerting just curious do I see something over there what does that look like when they are now anxious what do their ears do what does the hair up the back of their neck do or at their tail head what does the tail do start journaling what your dog does when they are are alert when they're excited when they are over excited when they are anxious when they are fearful when they are reacting write down as much information as you can about each one of those States it's super important that you know that now yourself what are the things that trigger you it could be something as simple as a loose dog charging your dog do you go what are you doing you jerk come and get your dog think of the video clip that I showed you here today because that anger that anxiety that emotion that redlining emotion that you are allowing to spew out of you is not just going out to the person who owns that loose dog it's internalizing within you and it's going right down your leash to your dog so think about any situations that you could be in conversations that at home that cause a spark and cause an eruption of anger any situations that you could work hard at that you could now start applying yourself to create a trigger to change that it's not only going to benefit your dog I promise you my friend it's going to benefit your health in the long run in our next podcast episode I'm going to do a deep dive into a different approach that I have to overcoming fear in my dogs you know if you Google or go to YouTube and you do a search for fearful dogs you'll likely find I don't know hundreds of videos that will talk about either flooding meaning pushing that dog out of their comfort zone they need to learn how to no oh please no or you'll find the odd video that talks about

giving cookies lots of cookies lots of cookies that's going to help you my Approach doesn't take either one of those and I want to share it with you because I've helped a number of of not just my dogs but my students dogs overcome both over excitement fear anxiety and reactivity using this approach and that's coming up next time right here on sh by dog this is where we get all vulnerable and say are you a subscriber yet now I can't get more vulnerable but she can can you show them your belly yeah she's asking please hit the Subscribe button and turn on the notification Bell so you don't ever never miss another video and if you're already a subscriber hold on mechanics or everything in dog training but that's for you go ahead give yourself another reward tell them your [Music] belly oh