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Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

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61–70 of 104 posts

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No chance. Donating is not a solution to world hunger.

It could be if the money goes towards helping to build food production systems as opposed to buying food. I wonder if charities do this? Buying food just kicks the can down the road for sure.

No it doesn't. Any food production systems requires significant upkeep and security. As long as it's not solved bottom up the problem will continue to exist. Just look at the dilapidated schools in Africa. The gangs/corrupt governments will simply steal the food production facilities.

The only solution is to uplift the entire country, anything highly targeted will not work.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent who has had to do a bunch of this work, I think a big missing piece in much of the dialogue around it is understanding how exactly the “gentle” style of engagement isn’t just indulging, tolerating, excusing, and even rewarding bad behaviour. The official word is that adopting a gentle and emotionally aware stance has to be paired with a strong sense of boundaries, but it’s often very unclear how to differ…

The idea that asking someone how they are feeling is an "emotional deep dive" is a portion of the problem. Asking a family member how they are feeling should not be considered an in-depth activity.

> Asking a family member how they are feeling should not be considered an in-depth activity.

Why not?

Of all the people in the world I ask “how are you feeling” it’s my family that I both expect and receive the most in-depth answers and questions. These are people I live with and live with me, our emotions are deeply rooted and entwined with each other.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#63

Is there a direct connection between falling birth rates and treating animals as if they were beloved children? It seems like these animals evolutionary strategy is akin to that of the cuckoo bird.

> Is there a direct connection between falling birth rates and treating animals as if they were beloved children?

Yes, definitely. The cats sabotaged the economy to increase financial insecurity, and the dogs infiltrated r/Parenting to raise human parenting standards to unattainble levels. As a result, people are no longer willing to have babies, and both species have raised their living standards, enjoying the good life and laughing behind our backs. /s

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the OP was getting at is perfectly exemplified in this comment. A person who is set in their ways and unable to comprehend the emotional state of another being, just viewing the resulting behaviors as purely "bad"

At risk of attacking a straw man, do you believe it's ever possible to have a "bad" behaviour? When an adult throws a temper tantrum to an airplane stewardess, is that also something we should look on with "comprehension of another being's emotional state", or is it in fact entitlement, selfishness, poor regulation, and unrealistic expectations? Is that behaviour something we can agree on as being "bad"? I think that…

> But I don't see a lot of that nuance from many gentle parenting advocates

I see friends taking parenting courses, and raising their kids 'by the rules'. It seems so mechanical, and, from the behavior I see it isn't working very well either, just and endless battle against 'the rules'.

My kids are a bit older now, and looking back I see intuition is important in raising kids. You know your own boundaries, and can be strict about them, but you also love your kids, and can even enjoy and laugh seeing them push against rules and discovering their the world. A nice read on this is 'French children don't throw food' [1]

Trusting yourself and your kids makes you less likely to be angry or scream at them. I found raising your voice in many cases just means you don't trust yourself and you don't trust that your kids respect you.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/20/french-childre...

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#65

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> Now I'm going to cuddle my pup Henry. If you're American there is a big chance that you're using the word pup for a dog of any age. This in itself is a tell-tale sign of the way many people - especially those who are wont to write or speak about their dogs in public places - think about them, as permanent juveniles who will never "grow up".

> permanent juveniles who will never "grow up". The removal of testes/ovaries before puberty has something to do with that. Go to the third world and look at the dogs in the street. They have teats for nursing puppies and balls for making them, all plain as day. What dogs look like in developed countries isn't natural.

> look at the dogs in the street

I wonder why there are so many dogs in the street ;-)

There's nowhere where dogs are "natural." They're a species that was bred to the whims and desires of humans, almost always to the detriment of their evolutionary fitness.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#66
There is a great book on dog training called How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves by Sophia Yin. The basic premise is that all animals, including humans, are "trained" 100% of the time. That is to say, there is no explicit training time vs. non-training time. Each time an animal does anything, they either get a positive or negative reward. E.g. if a dog barks and you pay attention to it, then the dog learns to bark for your attention.

A corollary to this is that it's very hard to get a dog to unlearn something once it has learned it, especially if you can't remove the positive reward. For many dogs, behaviors like barking, chewing, and digging are self-soothing. That is to say the dog feels rewarded just for performing the actions when stressed. For this reason, battling entrenched separation anxiety is very difficult and takes many months, as the author experienced.

I wish this information was more well known. Dogs, as puppies, are very malleable, and you can raise a well adjusted dog pretty easily provided you're willing to put in a lot of work for the first few months of life. Once dogs reach adulthood, things become much harder as you're having to unlearn entrenched behaviors in addition to teaching new ones. This is especially important to understand if you're considering rescuing a dog. Rescuing adult dogs is noble, but you're basically playing the lottery with potential problematic behavioral issues.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#67
post #5

> If evidence suggests that many dogs, like many humans, misbehave because they are struggling with emotions and anxiety, why do so many pet owners and trainers look to punishment as the solution, rather than addressing the emotions directly? Same reason why so many people do the same to children - they're set in their views and are unwilling accept that they might be wrong. Also, it's less work (at lesst in the shor…

They're also upset or angry, which leads to lashing out which tends to be punitive in nature.

They are failing to control their own emotions.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same reason why so many people do the same to children - they're set in their views and are unwilling accept that they might be wrong There are plenty who believe that withdrawing privileges is an entirely normal and appropriate response when children misbehave. This isn't punishment, although some children consider it to be.

Actually, it's the definition of punishment: inflicting or imposing penalties as retribution for an offense. Withdrawing privileges is an imposed penalty. idk if it's appropriate or not, but it's objectively punishment not just an opinion children have.

It’s called negative punishment, and is pretty ineffective at eliciting the desired behavior. Positive reinforcement is the only way to spotlight the behavior you want by rewarding it. Punishment is more like learning the shape of a room by stubbing your toes on the walls. You’ll eventually get it but only after trying everything else you can think of.

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#69

I love dogs, but aren't there bigger issues in this world that we should focus on first? Millions of children on this planet are malnourished or suffering because of wars, climate change or just bad government. Is it ethical to pay a fortune for magnetic brain stimulation of your dog, if somewhere else in the world several people's lives could be saved with that money?

Why are you posting here? Shouldn’t you sell your computer and go practice what you preach?

Re: Anxious dogs, like anxious people, need help managing and reducing distress

#70
post #5

> If evidence suggests that many dogs, like many humans, misbehave because they are struggling with emotions and anxiety, why do so many pet owners and trainers look to punishment as the solution, rather than addressing the emotions directly? Same reason why so many people do the same to children - they're set in their views and are unwilling accept that they might be wrong. Also, it's less work (at lesst in the shor…

> Same reason why so many people do the same to children - they're set in their views and are unwilling accept that they might be wrong There are plenty who believe that withdrawing privileges is an entirely normal and appropriate response when children misbehave. This isn't punishment, although some children consider it to be.

Telling a child they're not being punished as you punish them is gaslighting.
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