Natural Instincts

I've talked about my doggy before and his natural instincts. Well here's more discussion of doggy behaviour.

The other day I had to put a stop to his barking at the men digging the road outside our garden. He likes to think he's a super scary guard dog, and, I guess it goes with the breed that he naturally wants to bark at every man that comes anywhere near his territory. He also does the same to the vaccuum cleaner and hairdryer! Both very dangerous things for dogs!

When he gets started down the barking route, I can see him getting quite excited and having an adrenalin rush from it (testosterone!) Some would say it is natural for a dog to do this, and a wild dog would use this for survival.

However, our hairy mutt lives in a nice quiet cul-de-sac in a wee village and is spoiled stupid! That natural instinct to growl and bark at all that feels threatening must not be encouraged to become a habit, no matter how great it feels to our 4 legged pup!

It might help him to release tension and get a buzz from it but it is not acceptable to scare the life out of any unfortunate male who dares to walk along our lane, anyone who rides a bike, or the poor postman who stuffs letters through the letterbox into his sacred space, not to mention the poor vax that clean up his hairs!

This behaviour has to be stopped before it becomes too much of a habit and we are labelled the neighbours from hell. (I think it's too late for the postman!)

So I just bark back at him to get his attention, then calm him down in an assertive way, as Ceaser says in 'The Dog Whisperer'.

We humans aren't much different. We get into habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, often from an early age, and if the habit isn't stopped early on, it becomes like a well travelled route in our psyche. We literally make deep grooves in our brain and it feels like there's no other route we can go down when something triggers our fear reactions.

But it isn't appropriate or fair that we 'bark' at or hide away from the world, most of which isn't out to get us (unless we do too much barking!). Hiding away doesn't serve us too well either, as we end up leading half a life and get depressed because we don't fulfil our potential, and our fearful thoughts get bigger as our world gets smaller.

So, like training our hairy pup with calm assertiveness, we have to work on calming ourselves as soon as we recognise we're off down that well travelled route again. It takes a bit of discipline to keep stopping ourselves on that route and choosing another, which is literally uncharted territory for us. But we're human, and this awareness is what makes us different from animals.

It's amazing what can happen to make it easier as soon as we make the sincere decision to do it, and stick to it. Often it takes a crisis in our lives, like a relationship breakup threat or an illness to force us into looking at ourselves and our 'routes'. Once a decision to make changes is made often people, books, media items and ideas that help will start to resonate with us.

My website will help get you started, or do you want to carry on 'barking' and living a fearful life?

www.stressalternatives.co.uk.

All the Best
Liz