"The Anxious Dog is a dog who never learned how to deal with the world around him. As a puppy his world was limited to his littermates, mother and the box they lived in. Anxious Puppy never ventured far from the whelping box, and was never handled, or very seldom handled, by any humans. His world was limited, with no new toys to experience, surroundings to investigate, or people/animals to make friends with."
Sometimes people think it's best to "leave it up to nature". When it comes to dogs; we never left it up to nature in the first place, so why start now? Humans selectively bred dogs for traits we desired; good sense of smell and desire to track, lowered desire to kill, and a higher desire to "howl" (bay) to gather the pack created a hunting dog. Higher desire to chase, lower desire to kill, and lower desire to bark created the perfect sheep herding dog. We selectively bred for our own purposes and fancies. We created the dog as we saw fit. This means that dogs are domesticated now. They are not wild animals, and do not posses the traits necessary to to develop as a dog in nature. A dog should be friendly, loyal, intelligent, and naturally "mans best friend". To "leave it up to nature" means taking humans out of the equation, and dogs need humans to BE DOGS. That sounds condescending, but it is simply the way we created them. We played God with a species, so it's time we own up to the fact and take care of them properly.
If we "leave it up to nature" dogs will not develop the important social skills they learn with humans at a very young age (between 4 - 12 weeks). They also learn important social skills with dogs during this time (though the window is slightly smaller, from 4 - 6 weeks). Many breeders will not allow pups to leave to a new home until 7 or 8 weeks, sometimes even PAST 12 weeks! This means your puppy's social development and early life skills that will be important for the rest of his life are, for the most part, in the breeders hands!
"Anxious Puppy eventually grew into Anxious Dog, who was suddenly expected to adapt to a whole new life and culture. Bright, new colours were introduced to him and he was too scared to investigate. New people and animals he'd never met or perhaps never even encountered their species before, and he cowered away, terrified they would hurt him. Anxious Dog was coaxed in a soothing tone when he cowered, it felt good. Eventually being scared became what was right in his mind because his humans had taught him by telling him it was okay to be scared."
While humans have a huge part in the dog, we are still two very different cultures. The funny thing is, we expect the dog to adapt to ours and most often are unwilling to adapt, even the slightest, to theirs! What's most amazing is that dogs DO eventually adapt to our world! We don't give them nearly enough credit that they deserve. Dogs are very adaptive animals, it is why they can live in every corner of the world so sufficiently. That being said, they still aren't going to think like people or talk like people. They are still dogs no matter what.
One of the biggest mistakes people often make with a timid, shy or scared dog is to try to sooth. When you pet your anxious dog and tell him "it's okay, you're a good boy" you're not telling him it's going to be okay and there's no reason to be upset, what the dog hears you telling him is that it's okay to be scared. It's okay to act anxiously. It's okay to be fear aggressive.
Dogs minds move forwards, dogs bodies move forwards. It's what they were built to do long before we ever got a hold of their genetics, they were built to move as wolves. Those instincts are still in them. Dogs don't have regrets or worry about the past or the future like people do. They just keep moving, taking it one step at a time, focusing on one step at a time. When a dog is being anxious you need to just keep him moving, get his mind going forward (and the easiest way to do this is get his body moving forward too!) and focused on something else. Something positive, but at the same time, not a reward for being anxious. If it's a young pup who is in the fear stage and just learning how to deal with strange things in his world, he needs time and patience to investigate it on his own. He may need to be "pushed" a little, but if you push him too much he may end up scared of that event for life!
Socializing puppies requires a finesse, and it's important to do your research BEFORE getting a dog on how to properly socialize him!
"Years passed and Anxious Dog became quite attached to these humans. They gave him a confidence that he could handle his fears on his own. But Anxious Dog never learned how to deal with these problems in a healthy fashion. So Anxious Dog used what was naturally given to him to deal with problems; his bark and his teeth."An anxious dog that was neglected proper socialization as a puppy won't necessarily never bond with humans, in fact quite the opposite in many cases; where the dog will learn kindness from a human and be overwhelmed by it to the point of adoration. They become too attached to that person/people.
Strangers, on the other hand, can be quite scary to an anxious dog. He may be easily over stimulated when meeting new people (jumping, barking, and overall too excited and unable to control himself). He may lash out aggressively, trying to appear tough and "secure", when really he is terrified.
We know people come in all kinds, but sometimes we forget when it comes to socializing our dogs. They need to be socialized with people of all ages, races, sexes, with hats, beards, wheelchairs, crutches etc. All of these factors make people very different for dogs. Sometimes a dog will seem perfectly fine with all people except for men, or men with beards, or men of a certain race, or children, or people with hats, and the list goes on. It is because they either had a bad experience (especially if it was during a crucial socialization period) or they were never socialized at all to these types of people. This can create an insecure dog when dealing with those people.
Anxiety Dog's specific problem is with strange dogs on leash and children. Both he had poor experiences with, though not during a critical socialization period. However, because Anxiety Dog was not properly socialized as a puppy and had preexisting anxiety before encoutering bad experiences with strange dogs on leash and children, his poorly formed idea of dealing with it was to use aggression. He taught himself that children are harmful, and so to protect himself he acts aggressively before other children have a chance to hurt him. The same applies to strange dogs on leash (but dogs off leash he is happy to make friends with!).
If Anxiety Dog had been socialized better during the critical socialization and fear stages in his life he would have already developed the skills mentally to handle the bad experiences and the aggression would have been far less likely to develop.
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