Fearful and Shy Dogs
Sharing your life with a shy or fearful dog takes a special owner who has much patience and compassion. Helping these dogs build confidence can be a slow process, but a very rewarding one.

Fearfulness is fairly common in dogs. The reasons for this are complex, with many variables. While there could be abuse or a traumatic event in the dog’s past, lack of early positive socialization as well as genetic predispositions are the main causes of fear behaviors in dogs. It is imperative that dogs are bred for good temperament and personality and not just for their good looks. Positive early socialization as young puppies is absolutely critical in helping them grow into happy, confident adult dogs.

Dogs exhibit fear to a multitude of stimuli in their daily life. They could be afraid of new people, situations like going to the vet, and/or certain noises. Dogs may suffer only one type of these fears (e.g. thunderstorms) and be perfectly confident the other 99% of the time. Or, a dog may be afraid of many things – people, noises and new environments.

Great improvements can be made with many fearful dogs simply by providing time, love, and patience. The single most important thing for owners to remember is not to force a dog to interact with something that scares them. Always, let it be on the dogs’ terms and timeline. The worst thing to do with a fearful dog is to punish him and/or force interaction by holding the dog on a leash and not allowing the dog to gain valuable space from whatever he’s afraid of. By forcing a dog to interact (for example, holding him on leash while someone approaches), you are putting him in a very precarious situation that could easily result in a fear bite. Don’t ever put your fearful dog in this position. There are all kinds of desensitizing exercises to work on with a fearful dog to help improve the situation – just don’t push him.

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