Help your fearful dog relax in their safe space

If you have a dog is who is fearful, anxious, shut-down, or feral, and isn't relaxed even at home, this blog is for you.

When I start working with a new student with a profoundly fearful dog, one of the first things we do is to create a safe space for the dog. This is a place in the house where the dog can retreat, hide, and relax. 

While I dig into the details of setting up a safe space in an earlier blog and video, in this video I focus on three common problems with safe spaces that I often see preventing a fearful dog from relaxing.  I go into more detail in the video below, but if you're in a hurry, here are three common barriers to your dog relaxing in their safe space:

1) People approaching or looking into the safe space.  This can be a real stressor for very fearful or feral dogs. 

What's the solution? Get a camera that you can use to watch your dog remotely, from your phone. There are a number of companies who make relatively inexpensive in-home cameras. Then you can check on your dog without disturbing them. You can't avoid approaching the safe space to feed your dog if that's where they live, but you can reduce visits if you can check on them via video feed.

2) Dog isn't able to hide. Fearful or feral dogs need to be able to get out of your sight.  I show several examples of hiding places you can incorporate into your dog's safe space in the video below.

3) Too much traffic and noise near the safe space. It can be very difficult for a sensitive dog to relax if people or other pets frequently pass by their safe space.  If you can, set up your dog's safe space in an out-of-the-way area or room.  Including sound masking measure like music can also help. 

In the video, I include an example of one of my student dogs, Randy, who was went from being completely shut down, to starting to play, once his safe space was improved. 

What questions do you have about your fearful, timid, or shut-down dog? Shoot me an email at [email protected] and tell me about your pup.