If youâre like most dog parents, you want to understand your dog as best as possible. And what better way to do that than to learn about dog psychology? So if youâre curious about how to build a stronger, more trusting relationship with dogs, read on! You may be surprised by what you learn.
If we consider the human species, our species, then we will basically find two kinds of psychology:
- Male Psychology
- Female Psychology
People see the world differently based on their gender. Often, men donât understand women and women donât understand men. This is because both genders have different psychology, and to fulfil each other needs we must understand the basics of it.
Understanding this concept of different psychology in people is critical since it allows you to take action and learn about the psychology of dogs because dogs are a different species.
Let me give you an example of the difference between the way humans behave with a nervous insecure dog and how dogs behave with such dogs:
Dogs generally give distance to such dogs and in mother nature, you will hardly see any such cases.
On the other hand, humans are completely different, most humans nurture insecurity in their dogs by not giving distance and worse by giving affection when the dog is nervous or insecure.
The reason most human nurture insecurity is lack of knowledge of dog psychology and lack of control over our own emotions because it is very hard to see our dog suffer.
Whenever a dog receives affection, his or her state of mind get nurtured. So if you are giving affection when the dog is under stress then you are nurturing his stressed state of mind. This is one of the differences between human psychology and dog psychology.
Now multiply this nurturing of the wrong state of mind, nurturing a fearful state of mind, every day, then over a period of time, the dog will get habitual of living in a fear state of mind always, which leads to a very unhappy life, a sad life just because of the lack of understanding of humans.
Dogs are part of the animal kingdom and in order to understand your dogâs state of mind, you first need to learn about how animals communicate.
Animals communicate with each other via their body language and their energy, thatâs how they understand who is prey and who is the predator.
Interpreting your dogâs state of mind is important because every interaction you have at that time will be associated with that state of mind.
If your dog is not projecting calmness and confidence then he or she requires your guidance and not affection at that time.
When any dog gets under stress, he requires his pack to project calmness and confidence to become balanced again.
If you are feeling nervous, sad or giving affection to your dog when he/she is stressed, then you are actually making things worse for your dog. Dogs take feedback from their environment, so it is important to act with calmness and confidence around them.
Give affection and attention only when the dog is projecting calmness and confidence.
Dogs are social animals and in the wild, they live in packs. In order to have a balanced dog, you need to provide him with the same structure that he would find in the wild.
Here are the 5 rituals to create structure in your dogâs life:
- Walk Ritual
- Discipline Ritual
- Socializing Ritual
- Feeding Ritual
- Play Ritual
