Recovering from a stressful event
As much as we try to avoid stressful situations for our dogs, they still happen from time to time. After all, stress is a part of life - but too much stress is bad news. It's important to help your dog calm down and recover from a stressful event.
In this article we suggest some activities you can use to help your dog decompress after a stressful event.
Treat search - it is a simple nosework activity you can do with any dog. It is calming and provides gentle exercise. Make sure the dog is not hot or hungry before you try it*. Take a heaped handful of tiny, tasty treats and scatter them around all at once. Wait for the dog to find them. A treat search is usually done outside, on grass or a different natural surface, but you can adapt it to your dog's needs.
Take a slow walk in a quiet place with many opportunities for sniffing. Sniffing lowers dogs' pulse. If something very stressful happened during a walk, it might be best to choose a place away from where the incident happened.
Laying / resting together quietly - take some time to just rest with your dog and do nothing together. Having quiet social time is very beneficial for your dog.
Some dogs appreciate touch as a form of stress relief, while others may experience more stress if being touched, so this option is not suitable for all dogs. With some, you can try a grounding technique - stroking your dog slowly from their head to their back, then slowly moving to stroke each paw. This can help dogs calm down as it creates awareness of their own body and their body position. Please pay close attention to the dog's body language and only touch the dog if she is okay with it.
Some dogs might prefer to chew something to calm themselves down. We recommend only safe natural chews and supervising the dogs for safety reasons.
In order to recover, skipping a walk can be a good idea. We wrote about it here.
Helping your dog to calm down and process a stressful event will positively impact their well-being which can mean greater stress resilience in the future. Let's be there for our dogs when they need us.
We thank Lisa from the Calm Minds & Canines project for sharing these wonderful pictures of Nyako, who just suddenly moved homes. Lisa is helping her to recover.
*If your dog is feeling hot after physical exercise or during warm weather, they will need to thermoregulate through panting. Having to sniff for treats and eat them will prevent them from panting. In addition, if your dog is hungry, having to sniff out and eat treats in small amounts will likely cause frustration, which defeats the purpose of the whole activity. We want to make sure a treat search is a pleasant experience for your dog.
