I have written before about the relationship between emotional state and the ability to cope with stress. Stress resiliency is so important because the inability to effectively cope with stress is linked to a wide variety of mental and physical health disorders. In dogs, this often manifests as an increased likelihood of behavior issues. And,… Continue reading Emotional Well-Being and Sensitivity to Reinforcement and Punishment
Working with animals that suffer from high levels of anxiety and fear is heartbreaking. They are suffering in a very real way and, as much as we want to help them, dramatic progress is often difficult. There are many possible causes of intense fear and anxiety, but in this blog post I’m going to focus… Continue reading Trauma, Chronic Stress, and the Brain
Adolescence. We all know what it’s like. Raging hormones, wanting to be the center of attention, rebellion, risk-taking behavior–and those all-important social relationships. I’m talking about humans, but is it really so different in our dogs? Adolescence in dogs starts around six months of age (in females, it begins when they enter their first estrous).… Continue reading Rethinking Adolescence
Stress resilience is the ability to effectively respond to stress. In humans, higher levels of stress resilience are associated with decreased susceptibility to mental health disorders. Poor stress resilience is associated with mental and physical health concerns and decreased quality of life. Basically, stress resilience is key to living a good life. Dogs that have… Continue reading Building resilience: effort, reward, and stress coping
This month we’re going to take a look at fear learning. Fear and anxiety underly many of the behavior issues in dogs. Understanding the subtleties of how fear works can help us prevent and address it more effectively. First, it’s important to understand how fear develops in the first place. Certain things are innately frightening… Continue reading The Development of Fear
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