nerves & Anxiety

What is nerves & anxiety in your dog?

There are so many nerve pathways and sensory neurons in the fascia (read more on fascia here) of the dog it is easy to begin to understand that prolonged stress, anxiety, and fear can have an impact on the myofascial network that surrounds all of the muscles in the body. The fascia holds habitual patterns of stress or acute traumatic events and the pain from this (myofascial pain) can lead to a change in posture, mood, reactions and general body language of your dog. This can then lead to gait changes and further injury, so it is important to address this to improve nerve and muscular function.

There are many things that can be considered a trigger for your dog, that can cause nerves, anxiety and fear in your dog. Triggers include things such as the vets, dog groomers, travel in the car or negative interactions with other dogs. Individually these triggers can be overcome with time and understanding of your dogs behaviours, so you can help your best friend out. This will then return your family member to his/her happy space. If a dog encounters lots of these triggers in quick succesion then something called trigger stacking will occur.

What is trigger stacking?

This is a building of individual triggers that a dog may face, which usualyl haoppen in quick succession. If your dogs usual tolerance level is 10, and each trigger adds 3 points to the stack, it wont be long before your dog has reached its tolerance level. If the next even takes the stack to over 10 on the dogs tolerance level, this can lead to a spontaneous or erratic reaction, that may seem a little out of the blue. This is because, wioth each trigger, a release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisole, the fight or flight hormones, is released. It can take up to 6 days for the hormones to naturally dissapate from the system so if the dog experiences multiple triggers before the hormones have dissipated then the building of them in the dogs system can cause unpredicatble overreactions to something that may be considered as a minor situation.

Image from Canine Massage Guild.

Understanding trigger stacking and what specific triggers your dog has can help you better understand how to avoid situations that would normally affect your dog, and give you a helping hand when you want to try and keep your dogs anxiety levels down.

what are the symptoms or body language that you are likely to see with your dog?

The diagram is a great representation of the types of body language, or behavour, that your dog is likely to show you in the event of them being stressed, anxious or fearful of something.

If your dog fits in to any of the categories or shows any of the examples below then it is worth considering clinical canine massage therapy as a worthwhile treatment option:

  • Twitching of the skin/tight skin

  • Doesn’t like to be handled/touched/groomed/examined

  • Has been attacked by another dog

  • Rescue/Rehomed

  • Scared of strangers

  • Nervous around other dogs (may be symptomatic of a pain guarding reflex

Image courtesy of Animigo. Please note that BelMar Canine Massage Therapy is not affiliated with Animigo.

how can massage help reduce your dogs anxiety levels?

  • Massage therapy will activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which will help the body return to a more normal working order

  • Removal of soft tissue dysfunction around the body which may be contributing to mood changes in your dog

  • Reduction in pain assiciated with soft tissue damage and/or orthopaedic conditions around the body

  • Helps to remove myofascial pain around the body and return the fascia to normal function, which will reduce tension around the body

  • Helps to remove the build up of the flight or flight hormones in the body and helps to release calming and relaxing hormones

  • Helps to reduce pain around the body, which some dogs will try and protect by warding off other dogs with negative behaviour

  • Helps to remove toxins around the body which will help improve your dogs general mood

Contraindications (reasons to not massage or to alter the massage) to be aware of - if your dog is showing any signs of the following then please let me know and then we can discuss a treatment schedule to work around or outside of the particular issue.

  • Epilepsy

  • The severity of the condition

  • The level of inflammation in the area (heat therapy should be avoided if inflammation present)

  • Skin irritations such as eczema

  • Bruises

  • Open wounds

  • High blood pressure

  • Diabetes

  • Cardio-vascular conditions

  • Broken bones

  • Pregnancy