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Fears and Phobias in Dogs

Fear is a normal emotion that helps protect us from harm. It is the body’s response to a potential threat. In animals, it is more of a survival act/process, to protect them from danger. Fear in dogs can become a problem when the particular condition, object or person, causes them to react abnormally to a perfectly harmless situation.

They are often things that humans are unaware of, as they are everyday occurrences or situations understood by people, but not domestic animals. Some fears develop into phobias, which are far more limiting on a dogs’ life as they restrict typical behaviour responses. The dog may also begin to generalise, showing the same phobic response to sounds not related to the original cause of the phobia. For example, a phobia of fireworks could lead to a fear of slamming doors and loud music. Dogs also associate the experience with the context with which it occurred in and the phobia may progress to a fear of a certain location that it heard the loud noise.