Noticing Your Dog’s Stress Levels

Noticing Your Dog’s Stress Levels

Noticing your dog’s stress levels can help spot unusual stress signs in a dog which can appear out of the blue as a dog has so much thrown at it on a daily basis that owners don’t take it into consideration.

I don’t think some owners out there realise what a dog must contend with and learn to allow in, and what to block out on a daily basis to cope and survive the day.

It helps at a younger age, getting the right training, socialisation and habituation to keep pushing a dog out of its comfort zone in a controlled manner to educate it.

But what is it telling us when we observe a dog?

Now, if you think, daily a dog must cope with social pressures and learn from how we guide and shape it, while learning from all the interactions that it has.

Many owners expect their dogs to cope with what is thrown at them. Then it goes through different fluctuations of emotions and behaviours through the day from when it meets dogs, or different types of people, and comes into situations with new sights, sounds and smells that it has to deal with.

We as humans learn to block out planes flying overhead, random noises in the background, A bus or lorry driving past, and A leaf-blowing machine going on in the next door’s garden. But is your dog handling these experiences?

Hopefully, I can shed some light on some things to look out for. There are lot to know about how a dog can tell you if they are stressed and anxious.

So, I just wanted to mention a few different ones that many people may not realise. By doing this, hopefully, you might observe your dog in a different way and learn to take into consideration what it has to deal with on a daily basis.

Firstly, let me quickly mention that stress at low levels aids learning as the adrenaline and cortisol released in the nervous system of a dog, helps as these chemicals help a dog become a little heightened, but at the same time take in what is going on.

If the level of stress was too high, it would have the opposite effect.

Unusual Stress Signs In A Dog

Anyway, I am not mentioning common ones today, like a tight body, ears pinned back, making itself bigger, and lip licking, though that one does have various meanings. I wanted to help you notice some that you may not realise are stress indicators.

Some of these could be the mouth of a dog on the sides looking shorter than normal. You can notice this more on dogs that have longer muzzles and noses as when you look from the side you can see if the side of the mouth above the jaw, even when shut, looks longer, compared to the side of the mouth that looks short.

That short look is a sign of stress.

Sweaty paw prints are another. It’s not raining, yet your dog is leaving a damp paw print behind.

A dog being uninterested in food can be another sign of stress. Some owners could think that the dog is a fussy eater, yet it eats perfectly well at home. Yet outside, for example, won’t touch anything. That can indicate that the dog is uncomfortable with what is going on around it.

Constantly licking itself. If that’s happening, in a situation like this you’re probably indoors. If so, what is going on? Is it noisy? Is anything scary happening? Are there raised voices? Is there another dog present or an animal?

Does your dog have adequate space or does it need a breather away from you? Have a look around and see what may be causing it.

One that people can mistake quite often is a dog coming across as friendly by being hyperactive, this is actually because it cannot handle the situation that it’s in.

Assuming this happened outside when meeting people, Then the dog needs some help in that area so it can make calmer signals, thus calming its body language down too.

Another could be a spatulated tongue. This is where a tongue hanging out widens and can look like a spatula or spoon. This is due to being stressed and having high blood pressure at that moment in time.

Anyway. I just wanted to touch on some signals to watch out for as there is a lot to know on this subject. So I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and learnt something from it.