And now for another four letter word – F@#%

FEAR!

It stops us from doing so many things.

I unknowingly lived virtually the first half of my life in fear. Many of us live in fear and it can have devastating effects on our day to day existence. Dogs are no different. So often, when I am out and about I see fearful, anxious dogs trying to communicate to their humans at the other end of their leads. Don’t get me wrong, I see plenty of happy well adjusted dogs moving through their environments, which makes my heart sing and gives me hope for the ones that are living in a fearful anxious state.

Dogs and humans give subtle cues regarding social anxiety if they are uncomfortable in any given situation. These cues often go unnoticed by the world at large because whatever is going on in someone else’s world at any given moment, has little bearing on what is going on in your world. It’s not until the fear overwhelm’s the individual in question, that drastic measures must be taken to allay those fears.

As we move about our environment, danger is real and sometimes bad things happen for no apparent reason. Fear is one response to perceived danger, fear can also be with us when there is no danger in site.  Science now tells us that all mammilan animals share similar brain structures. The brain is an incredibly complex structure and MRI studies of dog and human brains show that the same areas of the brain activate when the Limbic region of the brain takes over and we go into the  “fight, flight or freeze response” . This is how we cope on a biological level with perceived danger. Your dog has a heightened sense of perceived threat, probably due to their heightened sense of smell, when they are out and about. People who are in a constant state of anxiety that something bad will happen often end up with out of control dogs because their dogs are in tuned into that anxiety.

When you put a dog on lead, you take away their ability to choose which of the three responses (FIGHT, FLIGHT or FREEZE response) which can have devastating effects on their overall wellbeing. Most dogs and humans for that matter, will choose flight if given enough time to size up a situation. Adrenaline junkies will choose fight and I believe this is a learned response in accordance with their genetic predispositions and also if you choose freeze you are choosing to die.

The state of being paralysed by fear has devastating effects on the mind, body and spirit. It is so important to keep your wits and reflexes about you when faced with a conflict. Unfortunately, most pet owners are of the mind “my dog would never hurt… (fill in the blank) and are taken totally unaware when their lovable companion is pushed to its bite threshold. “My dogs never done that before”, or “I don’t know why, he suddenly just turned” are common laments from the uninitiated pet owners who have unwittingly punished out all their dogs precursors to aggression, which unfortunately are still lurking deep inside the dog.

I believe fear is the root cause of all aggression, be it human or otherwise. If we could let go of our fear and come from a place of love, trust and empathy for one another (whatever the species) I believe we could finally break down the barriers that continue to separate us.

So let go of your fear, and enjoy your journey.