In his inaugural speech of 1933, President Roosevelt described fear as a “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror,” sounds scarier, right? It can temporarily leave us paralyzed, feeling lethargic, and anxious. Even more, worse is if this fear grips your golden retriever. Normally, it will have a confident gait, warmly snag as it welcomes you home with a wagging tail, but once afraid, it might shy away, or worse still, literary avoid everything.
But then, why would my golden retriever be afraid of everything?
Possible reasons may include ill health or injury, mistreatment by previous owners, little to complete lack of socialization during the critical fear period, emotional trauma or any other trauma, nature and nurture, reward system of fear, genetic predispositions, and change of environment.
It may baffle many that a golden retriever, which is essentially a canine, is afraid. After all, isn’t it made for the wild? True, but fear has a survival value especially in protecting the dog against danger. And most certainly if it is an isolated single occurrence against a real threat, then that is but a natural survival instinct. But persistent, prolonged fear can be stressful to both the owner and the dog. The long term implication being need to diagnose so as to properly address the cause, and this can be pretty overwhelming.
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How To Recognizing Fear In A Dog
Unlike us humans, who can express our feelings verbally, dogs will express theirs in their action or inactions. These can be through body language, behavioral or physical symptoms. Misplaced or incorrect identification of fear can be pretty dangerous and can predispose one to reactionary responses by the dog. Especially if you are unsure of the tale tell signs of the cause of fear in the dog. And that is why it is wise to familiarize yourself with these signs.
Body Language Of a Dog
This is the primary means of communication for dogs with wagging tails and bared teeth being the most obvious. Some more subtle means include avoiding eye contact or averting the eyes, raised hair on the back, tucking of the tail between hind legs, yawning, flattened ears, lip licking, and cowering.
Behavioral Signs
The specific symptoms may be exhibited singly or in combination and include barking, growling, clinging on the owner, hiding, biting, snapping, pacing, and destructiveness.
Physical Signs
These are physiological tale tell symptoms that are invoked involuntarily and may include trembling, drooling, panting, dilated pupils and inability to control bowel movements.
Causes Of Fear In A Golden Retriever
Mistreatment by the Previous Owner
Just like humans, dogs perceive, internalize, and learn. The perception is through the owner’s tonal variations, rewards, actions, or inactions. And mistreatment towards a puppy either through inflicting of physical pain e.g beating, physiological such as prolonged confinement or behavioral such as negative reinforcement can train a dog to be afraid.
If you recently adopted or bought the dog therefore, you may have to give it lots of positive reinforcement, retraining, exercise and attention so as to help it unlearn previously learnt negative behavior.
Lack of Socialization
Sociologists and behaviorists define socialization as how we relate and fit with one another in our immediate environment. And puppies are no different as they learn a lot from their canine family. Additionally, they progressively learn from their human friends with whom they are in constant contact.
Lack of socialization with other dogs or people when they were puppies, a time when they are most curious, will result to immense negative impacts for the dog in later years. And this can be manifested as fear.
Genetic Predispositions
Some dogs may have a genetic predisposition to fear, timidity, and shyness. More so, if they were born to and raised by an anxious and fearful mother.
Traumatic Experiences
Traumatic experiences, whether physical or otherwise, at any stage of development may elicit lifelong fear in a golden retriever. A case in point is an intense brute hit to an unsuspecting dog by use of a stick. Such an occurrence leaves a lifelong memory scar to the dog. And the dog can, for a lifetime, associate and generalize holding of a stick to pain hence danger.
Pain
A dog that is unwilling to be touched could imply physical or internal pain. Their gait and posture may also be abnormal. Plus, dogs that appear shy, unease, limping, or moving with difficulty can be a sign of pain to the dog. And this can be a pointer to some undiagnosed medical issues that can be best explained by a vet.
Ill-health
Dogs, just like humans, assume a sickly look and may appear afraid due to the abnormalities that accompany ill health.
Change In Environment
A spontaneous complete change of the surrounding can cause fear and anxiety to a dog.
Nature and Nurture
Vast variations exist among different dog breeds and even within a common breed. So it may be that your golden retriever is naturally timid, shy, and fearful. And this may be further enhanced if it was nurtured to embrace this inborn fear.
Reward System of Fear
Unknown to many, a dog is quick to learn how we respond to various behaviors that it exhibits. For example, if you consistently snug, comfort, and give your dog more attention upon an exhibition of fear signs, it will learn to exhibit them so that you can reward it.
Things to Consider When Assessing Fear In a Golden Retriever
Age – puppies are generally more afraid than older dogs. This fear is, however, gradually replaced with confidence, braveness, and willingness to explore new places, interact with more people and dogs, and even exercise more in the outdoors. Unless it is a puppy, therefore, the fear expressed by dogs should be appropriately understood.
Time fear is expressed – repeated expression of fear in response to given environment, occurrence or sound may indicate an earlier unpleasant incidence.
It is important therefore to analyze the fear expressed within the lens of given contexts.
How to handle Dogs that are afraid to overcome fear
This can be two pronged. That is what not to do and what to do.
What Not To Do
Avoid the “face your fear approach”– flooding the dog with it is worst fear can quickly turn ugly. For example, if it is afraid of children, don’t force into places full of children as this might be counterproductive in the journey to overcome its fear.
Don’t pair fear and punishment – this will throw things into even further disarray. Pairing of the two, though most mistakenly used, can worsen and raise the fear threshold of the dog.
Wait on the fear to naturally disappear – For inexperienced and new dog owners, this may look like an awesome, cheaper and readily accessible strategy. Too bad, for it won’t do much to help the dog overcome its fear. Fear is generalized and associated to specific external or internal stimuli. Sitting on the fear and hoping for the dog to overcome will most definitely not work.
What To Do
Be respectful and positive of the fears – They may appear silly, timid and many other un-canine like traits, respect that fear and work to progressively overcome this fear.
Hire a positive certified training professional– such professionals can help both you and your dog on strategies of counter conditioning and desensitizing of prior learnt behaviors.
Be patient with them – understand that though it may make little to no sense for you dog to be afraid, it is a genuine and normal concern to your golden retriever.
How Do I Stop My Dog From Being Scared Of Everything?
Reward Your Dog with affection
Dogs learn by imitating other canines – or us humans due to the special close bond between us and them- within the same species. This is referred to as allelomimetic behavior.
This is why calmness and composure on that the owner goes a long way in expressing assertiveness to the dog. This sends a signal to the dog to overcome its specific fear trigger as they can see that you aren’t scared either, thus boosting their confidence.
Simply put, the dog is terrified, don’t provide love, offer leadership.
Take it to a Vet
Some fear, be they physical, behavioral or physiological may be indicators of deep seated problems. A clinical diagnosis is thus best suited to help unravel the fear expressed by golden retriever dogs.
Manage the Dog’s Instincts
Dogs have four main instinctive responses to most external stimuli; surrender, avoidance, flight or under extreme cornered situations, vicious fight-attack. The latter is what should be avoided at all possible costs. What we desire is surrender, which is influencing the dog to acknowledge the stimuli without strongly reacting to it. And this can only be achieved by offering leadership, not through verbal utterances of “be calm”, but assertive behaviors by you as the pack leader of the dog.