Dog and Cat Behavior

Archive for the ‘Fearful Behavior’ Category

When Janie first saw Cosmo at the shelter, she fell in love with him.  He was a two year old male Sheltie that had a sign that said “Very shy with people, but a sweet little dog.”   He was very shy with her at the shelter, but she felt sorry for him and wanted to give him a home.  She had lost her other Sheltie to cancer several months before and felt the time was right for another dog.  Cosmo did warm up to Janie over the next few days, but he was terrified of her husband Roy.  When Roy tried to be friendly with Cosmo, the dog  would run and hide, and if Janie held him near Roy he would struggle to escape.  But it wasn’t just Roy that was the problem.  Cosmo showed the same reaction to everyone except Janie.

Janie struggled with the problem for several months trying everything she knew, before calling us.  Cosmo wouldn’t come into the same room with us during the first hour we were at Janie and Roy’s home, and when he did come in, he would shoot past us and hide behind Janie.  He wouldn’t take treats from us and he wouldn’t play.  What caused Cosmo’s fear of people and how could he be helped?

Dogs are fearful of people for several reasons.  There may be a genetic predisposition to fearfulness of people.  Fifty years ago, researchers found that fears of people could have a genetic basis in dogs.  While extra socialization, behavior modification and medications all helped, dogs with these predispositions were never able to completely overcome their fears and behave like normal dogs.

Contrary to what you might think, dogs aren’t inherently accepting of people.  Dogs, like many mammals and birds have to learn whom to like and to whom to be fearful.  Most puppies that have good experiences with people during the sensitive period for socialization (4 – 12 weeks) grow up to be friendly to most people.  But if young dogs don’t have consistent contact with a wide variety of people, they are quite likely to be fearful of at least some people and may only be capable of developing strong social bonds with only a few individuals.  Inadequately socialized dogs can become less fearful of people, but it can require a long time and a lot of effort.

Third, traumatic experiences with people at any age can cause some dogs to become fearful of people.  Unpleasant experiences with children can lead dogs to become fearful of them.  Painful or fear-provoking experiences with adult humans who look a certain way, or dress or behave in a particular way can lead dogs to be afraid of anyone with similar characteristics. 

Often a fear related problem is caused by a combination of these factors.  When we work with fearful dogs, we often never really know what has produced the fearful behavior.  In Cosmo’s case, the shelter knew nothing of his previous life or experiences, so neither we nor his new owners knew what caused his fearful reactions.  Fortunately, knowing the causes isn’t always necessary to help with the problem.  In a future article, we’ll talk about what we did to help Cosmo.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about helping fearful dogs, take our On Demand Tele-webcast course by the same name.