Dogs are the most wonderful creatures on earth. They make your life full of fun and happiness. This adorable small friend of yours can sometimes get disturbed and anxious due to several reasons. This can affect their day to day lifestyle. Anxiety in dogs can be caused due to several reasons but if not treated on time can lead to several mental illnesses in your pet. You must take care of every small thing related to your dog or else it can result in the anxious nature in them. So, hereby you will be learning how to know when your dog is having anxiety and what will be the best possible ways to treat it.
Causes of anxiety in dogs
- Fear: Fear is the basic cause of anxiety in all living beings and that is the same with your dog. Your dog also might be fearing of some objects or situations. Your dog might be fearing loud noise, strange people and animals, strange things, the vet’s office, or maybe different surfaces. Some dogs might have very low stimuli against it but still, several other dogs may generate furious anxious behaviors.
- Separation: Separation is another major reason for anxiety in dogs. Separation either from their master, their furry friend, or their own pup. This major separation affects many of the dogs very harshly. This sometimes can develop undesirable behavior in them such as destroying the households, not eating food, and other unknown behaviors as well.
- Aging: This majorly affects older dogs and can be due to cognitive dysfunction syndrome. Dogs memorizing power along with mental strength starts declining as they grow older as humans also do. Many times this leads to confusion in dogs and causes anxiety.
- Health issues: Anxiety can be caused due to health problems in dogs. If your dog is suffering from medical conditions such as skin allergies, indigestion problems, and other diseases can make your dog go anxious. Even certain meds sometimes make them go anxious.
After knowing much about the causes of anxiety in your dog you must take the compulsory precautions so that your dog will not get depressed due to anxiety.
Symptoms of Anxiety in dogs
When your dog is suffering from anxiety it will show several unmanaged and unusual behaviors that you must identify to cure it. Some of the major symptoms shown by dogs at the time of anxiety are:
- Aggression: The most basic symptoms of being anxious is showing lots of aggression. Anxiety can make your small friend get aggressive and furious. It will start destroying the things in the house and will grow wild.
- Urinating and defecating in the house: This is very unusual and can be the worst behavior shown by an anxious dog. The dog urinates and defecates in the house to show their strong disapproval against some particular thing which is the main use of anxiety in them.
- Depression: Anyone who is in deep anxiety can go into depression. This can lead your dog to even stop eating and playing. Your dog starts becoming inactive and you won’t be even able to guess its mood.
- Excessive barking: If your dog is not satisfied with some particular thing and due to which develops anxiety than the first thing it does to show it is by barking excessively. Generally, dogs do not bark that much but anxiety can drive them to bark all day.
- Repetitive behavior: This stint is common in humans as well. If we are anxious we show some physical repetitive behaviors which are very unusual and of no worth. The same is the condition with the dogs. They show several repetitive behaviors such as rolling on floors, etc.
Treatment of anxiety in dogs
Although it is not an easy job to treat anxiety in your dog, there are several methods you can apply to get your dog back to normal.
- Medications: When you observe any of the above-mentioned symptoms in your dog then you must first consult the vet and get appropriate medications for it.
- CBD oil: This is one of the best curing meds. CBD oil is the most substantial thing to relieve anxiety in your pet. Not only does it relieve anxiety but also it helps in curing several other health-related problems for them.
- Exercises: Physical activities are a must for a dog. Any kind of impairment in physical activity can lead to several mental and physical disharmony in pets. So, make sure you properly take care of your dog’s physical exercise to make it calm and fit as well.
- Behavioral training: This is one of the professional ways to treat your pet’s anxiety. Behavioral training means training the behaviors of your pet and making it capable enough to deal with every situation.
Similarly, there are several other ways to cure your pet’s anxiety such as taking proper care of it, taking away the things that your dog fears, taking proper health care of your dog so that it won’t develop any health problems. These are some of the best ways to cure your dog’s anxiety. But still, prevention is better than a cure so always try to prevent those things which cause the anxiety in your dog. Some of the best preventive measures are:
- Do not try to separate your dog from the things it loves the most
- Try to spend sufficient time with your dog so that it won’t feel lonely.
- Take your dog for regular checkup to the vet to ensure its medical wellness.
- Take your dog to a regular walk to ensure your dog’s physical fitness.
Thus, these are some amazing ways to prevent anxiety in your dog and make sure you do not let your dog go anxious by timely precautions. Your dog is your best friend so you must take timely care of it.