Learn To Educate Your Puppy’s Emotions

The first thing we must take into account when we want to educate our four-legged friends’ emotions is that our emotions affect them. That is, as the saying goes, no dog will be balanced without a prudent owner.

Therefore, just like our pets, we have to learn to properly manage and express our emotions if we want our pets to respond in the same way.

However, this shouldn’t worry you, because it’s a team work and if you know how to handle it, you will achieve a good performance.

Knowing our dog’s emotional states

Dogs have a very specific and unique way to express emotions, feelings and desires. So the first thing we have to do is find out how they express joy, fear or discomfort.

While it’s true that every dog ​​has a behavior, there are characteristic patterns that show emotional reactions long before they reach a peak of intensity with it. This is to say that animals have an instinct to calm down and settle down.

About this, it is important to know the expressions of your animal, dogs use body language emitting different communication signals, whether with other dogs, with other animals or with the owners and other members of the surroundings where the animal lives. These signs are called calm signals. 

It is important to recognize how dogs use these signals to fully understand your dog and  act on emotions and help the dog to understand complicated emotional situations and to celebrate with him with joy or curiosity.

Next, we leave an image that will help you learn to discriminate your great friend’s emotions:

So, we have to ensure that the dog is not afraid of you and, if he does, that you know how to show repentance and forgiveness. For example, our dog must know that we are never going to harm him.

Educate dogs positively

The ideal is to educate our dog positively. From this perspective, you should not punish or yell at animals, but not treat, sweet, caress or pay attention when they misbehave or break the rules.

So, our dogs must get approval only when they behave correctly. Therefore, we must control our reactions so as not to confuse the dog. You’re not doing them any favors by rewarding them when there’s nothing to justify it, on the contrary, you’re teaching them that wrong behavior is worth maintaining.

Normally, people make a big mistake in dog education, which is to punish the animals’ emotions. It is necessary to stop and analyze why our friends feel fear, anxiety, threat or anger.

Reactions to these emotions are likely to be punishment, yelling or pulling the leash, or reinforcing hugs and petting in the hope that the dog will calm down.

About this, we must make a reflection…  Why should we punish our dog if he is afraid? For example, it’s the same as screaming at a child who’s afraid of the dark, it’s crazy, isn’t it?

In these situations, what we must do to balance our dog is to allow and encourage him to explore around, ignoring those inappropriate manifestations.

Meanwhile, if you hug your pet when he’s anxious, you’re prolonging and even promoting anxious behaviors, along with the feelings he brings.

So, as we can see, educating our dogs’ emotions is not something we can learn in a day, but something that requires observation, understanding and communication with the animal.

Thus, the animal will begin to tolerate higher levels of emotion and learn to channel and problem-solve. That is, if, for example, you help him explore what he fears, the fear will diminish.

The administration and management of canine emotions is an owner’s responsibility to safeguard the animal’s well-being. For this reason, we must begin to understand and teach that he is able to resolve his own emotional situation.

As we can see, emotional education must always be done through love, with patience and respect. In short, it means showing dogs that they shouldn’t be afraid of the outside world and that they will be loved unconditionally.