Natural Pet Health

While you may not realize it, your pet can suffer from stress, just like you do. It certainly won’t be the same kind of stress you feel, such as paying the bills or getting to work on time, but it is very real to your pet. Pet stress can cause a variety of problems with your pet, so as a good pet owner, it is a good idea to know how to recognize the signs and what to do.

Dogs probably show signs of stress more than cats, although cats feel it, too. Stress in pets can range a great deal and the symptoms can also vary. It seems that being a loved cat or dog in the family is quite easy. They don’t have a thing to stress about. That is just not the case. Here is a look at common pet stresses and how you can help you pet overcome these situations.

Dogs are emotional animals and are generally ‘one-person’ pets. This means that their allegiance generally lies with one member of the family. Unlike cats, dogs are not too attached with the house. And this strong bond between the master and the pet brings about something called the separation anxiety.

Dogs who suffer from separation anxiety tend to exhibit undesirable behavior when they do not see their owners for a certain period of time. Separation anxiety in dogs can be triggered of after long periods of absence like after a vacation. A significant change in routine or a change of place of residence can also cause separation anxiety.

Dogs cannot speak our language and we can never be sure whether their barking is a warning, a complaint or an expression of some discomfort. But there is one thing that we do know and that is that the barking is supposed to mean something.

A dog may bark for various reasons. And in many cases the barking is due to a previous situation or experience that he may have had. Research has unequivocally established that the dog’s brain does respond to stimuli and this was proven long time ago with Pavlov’s experiment.

Experiments reveal that there is imagery in the dog’s brain that induces specific dog behaviors. These behaviors could seem normal or abnormal to us but they do have a meaning. Dogs have the capacity to recall images of the owner, earlier smells and sounds and past experiences and these cause them to behave in a certain manner.

As a pet owners, we come to expect mishaps now and then—a wetting accident after being left alone too long, changed behavior in a new environment, stomach upset after a new food—but sometimes, unavoidable and seemingly inexplicable triggers can send even the most composed animal into a frenzy.

For instance, many animals experience anxiety during thunderstorms and fireworks. Animals may cower, hide under the bed, tremble, or exhibit nervous behavior. However, sometimes the response can be disproportionate to the situation or result from an unlikely trigger such as beeping from an electronic device, a hair dryer, or a vacuum cleaner.

As more and more people become pet owners, sometimes disturbances in behavior, such as anxiety around noise, aren’t considered before adopting or buying. However, to provide both emotional and physical support for your pet during times of nervousness, it is important to be ready to care for your pet in the best way possible—without exacerbating an existing problem or creating a new one.

• Regular exercise is essential. High energy pets need a natural outlet for their energy and exhaustion can have a dramatically calming effect on an overly active animal! Plus, exercise has been shown to have a mood-stabilizing, calming effect

Undesirable and destructive behavior from your dog can get extremely irritating. It is especially peeving if you have made sure that he is trained adequately right from the time that he was a puppy. After you are sure that your dog is fully trained, bad behavior does become difficult to tolerate and cope with.

However, it is important to understand that there are many reasons why your dog can relapse into untrained, destructive or extremely submissive behavior even after years of training. It is common for perfectly restrained dogs to go berserk at times with no apparent reason.

One of the reasons why some dogs can forget all that they have learnt is anxiety. Even though dogs are intelligent animals, they are incapable of controlling stress and anxiety that they may feel due to various reasons.