Rehab for Anxiety

When it comes to rehabbing anxious dogs, I always talk about putting the anxiety into ‘remission’ but I never talk about it in terms of ‘fixing’ or ‘curing’ anxiety because it’s a very deeply rooted issue that can come back if the dog’s training, structure, and daily exercise aren’t consistently maintained.

Dogs aren’t born anxious, they may have inherent qualities that make it easier for them to become more anxious than other dogs but they didn’t start out that way. Anxiety in dogs is created by how we live with them and what we share with them. The silver lining here is that by changing how we live with the anxious dog and changing what we share with him, we can make great improvements in his state of mind and behaviour.

There are 3 lifelines to helping the anxious dog that we create and pattern during training rehab and that we teach our owners continue to apply life long afterwards and these three kings are:

1/ training

2/ structure

3/ daily exercise

Training is kind of like the therapy process during rehab when the dog is learning new skills, better coping mechanisms, appropriate behaviour and a healthier mindset.

Structure is the supportive framework that we apply to the dog’s life under human leadership to make it easier for him to follow that new training for calmness and better choices and harder for him to default backwards into his ingrained anxious bad habits.

Exercise like structured leash walks, treadmill time, calm and controlled ways of moving the body are vital for helping the anxious dog release built up stress and tension that would otherwise feed the anxiety. Anxious dogs very often need more exercise than average but it’s got to be done in a structured and healthy way otherwise it too could feed the anxiety, for example calm structured leash walks vs. hours of pacing and whining in a yard.

These three pillars help us get the majority of dogs into a really great calm mental space but occasionally there are dogs who need a little something more to help them get over the finish line and this is when we consider anxiety medications.