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On these last few page are some practical suggestions for helping your highly sensitive dog remain more calm in stressful situations, and over time become less reactive (i.e., adapt).

1. Calm environment

In my experience, the backdrop to managing high sensitivity is a calm environment, particularly a calm home. There can still be periods of activity that are lively and stimulating; in fact, I think there needs to be.

Eustress (‘good’ stress, tolerable stimulation) is beneficial because it’s adaptive — and also because it’s the stuff of life! Boredom is a kind of slow death for intelligent creatures.

Home just shouldn’t be noisy and chaotic, which is to say, overstimulating and at times overwhelming for these highly sensitive dogs. (Such a home is not that good for humans, either!)

What ‘calm environment’ looks like for you and your dog will depend very much on your dog and your circumstances. Your home needn’t be like a monastery to serve your highly sensitive dog well.

As a striking example of what’s possible, I have a friend who has several dogs, most of whom are highly sensitive (as a “soft” breed and as individuals). These dogs frequently go to group classes at a dog training centre, to dog shows, even some big national events, and to hospital and hospice facilities as therapy dogs. Oh, and they live on a farm, where big outdoor dogs guard the livestock. While their home is often lively and stimulating (it’s full of animals, so how could it be otherwise?!), it’s seldom noisy or chaotic, and never so for very long.

These dogs thrive because they are all well loved and well respected as individuals, and their person takes care that none of her dogs are overstimulated or overwhelmed for very long. These dogs are also well trained and know what’s expected of them. These are all points I’ll touch on again later.

Each dog is unique in its genetic inheritance and life history, and so is each person, so you’re the best person to figure out what works best for your dog. Incidentally, you may find that changes you make for your dog’s sake also benefit you and/or other family members, even if you’re not a highly sensitive person yourself (although chances are, if you’ve read this far, you are·:-).

2. Social bonds

Dogs are a highly social species, as are we, so when we keep dogs as pets, particularly a single dog, we become our dog’s primary or sole means of social connection and support; in essence, we become the dog’s family.

Respecting the social bonds our dogs have with us, and making sure that love and respect flow freely in both directions, is just as important as providing a calm environment, because social isolation is to the psyche what oxygen deprivation is to the body.

A sense of security that’s rooted in a sense of belonging may be more important to the health and well-being of these highly sensitive dogs than we might like to think with our busy lives. This Finnish study obliquely referenced social bonds in its finding about the oxytocin receptor gene, but there is much more to be learned here. In the meantime, I think we can safely assume that a calm environment is a rather bleak landscape in the absence of stable, loving social bonds. It’d be a bit like living in a library... (might sound idyllic at first, but before too long...).

Viewed in this light, separation anxiety is not a neurosis; it’s simply a reaction to social isolation in a highly social species. It’s a distress call, not a disorder. It’s a deficiency of stable social bonds, not of anti-anxiety medication.

Of course, not all dogs left alone all day exhibit separation anxiety — but that’s my whole ‘thesis’: if high sensitivity is a behavioural trait, expressed by a small but significant proportion of the population, then it’s best seen and managed as a normal variant, not a neurosis.

Separation anxiety is completely understandable when the highly sensitive dog is entirely dependent on you, when you are the dog’s entire social support system. (While we’re at it, any dog left home alone all day is probably experiencing some degree of social stress. To what extent, and with what outward signs, depends on the dog, and probably on where the dog lands on the sensitivity scale I propose exists in dogs as it does in people.)

As kooky as it may sound, I always made a point of talking to my dog. (I’m currently in the strange, airless limbo of a dogless state, which is why I keep using the past tense when I talk about my dog.) When I had to go out and leave her at home, I’d tell her where I was going, why I had to go out, and approximately how long I’d be gone or when I’d be back. I would also tell her when guests were coming over, how many there’d be, how long they’d be staying, and so on. Same for when we went anywhere in the car (which she never liked).

I know she didn’t understand most of the words, but that wasn’t the point; she always seemed to understand what lay beneath them. (I would also make sure I held a picture in my mind or ran a little mental movie of what I was saying; but that’s a story for another time.)

Being a highly social species, dogs are highly adept at nonverbal communication among their social group — a skill most humans have long since abandoned or left to wither in favour of words. Your dog 'reads you like a book', so don’t try to bluff your way through with words or gestures that don’t match how you’re really feeling. Just be honest with your dog (if no-one else).

It’s pointless trying to be any other way with a dog; and with a highly sensitive dog, the dissonance between what you think you’re conveying and what you’re actually projecting can be very unsettling.

Talking to your dog will help you get clear about what you want or what’s happening, which is important because we spend so much of our lives scattered (“multi-tasking”) and unfocused, churning over the past, fretting about the future, and never quite in the present or never here for very long. How can communication be clear and effective when the message is garbled?

So, talking to our dogs about what we expect of them, what’s planned for the day or simply for the next hour or two, what we do or don’t like about what they just did, etc. helps us get clear, which then helps our dogs feel more secure.

From the dog’s perspective, home feels like a safer place when you know what’s going on and what’s expected of you. Distracted people are stressful to be around for these highly sensitive dogs.

While we’re at it, make sure to include and consider your dog during human gatherings that occur in your dog’s home or that you participate in elsewhere with your dog (e.g., picnics, hikes). It really bugs me to see people ignore or only briefly and superficially acknowledge a dog’s greeting whenever there is another human around.

We so readily default to verbal communication and ignore all else, including our dogs. We quite literally talk over the dog’s head and ignore the genuine, heartfelt, and necessary social interaction the dog is trying to have with us, which almost always takes longer than the perfunctory greeting we may give each other or the brief pat on the head we may give a dog.

Perhaps it’s just because I prefer the company of dogs to most humans, but I make it a point to acknowledge the dog’s greeting and stay with it until the dog has said all he wants to say and then moves on to the next person or the next thing that takes his interest. Talk to your dog — and listen attentively when the dog ‘talks’ back.

One other strategy related to social bonds is the use of dog-appeasing pheromone products, such as Adaptil [TM]. These products release a synthetic form of the natural hormone that mother dogs exude which helps keep their pups calm and well bonded with her. These products can work well in concert with the other strategies discussed here, although on their own they’re unlikely to be adequate — and they are not a substitute for forming and preserving stable, loving social bonds!

In short, respect the social bonds between your dog and you, and prioritise a sense of safety and belonging through these bonds. This bond is also a necessary part of the next strategy for helping your dog cope better with the various stresses of life.

Read on...

© Christine M. King, 2019, 2022. All rights reserved.

First published on WordPress, 03 Feb 2019.

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