Normal things in weird contexts can certainly cause spooky responses.
Another’s fear won’t be your fear, and vice versa. The dog’s behaviour is information telling us about their experience.
This is a pretty low-stakes situation. He’s a pretty resilient fella and will recover immediately, it’s a bike and there’s no person or animal nearby and we have space to move on and by.
He’s certainly seen bikes parked here before and people doing all sorts of odd things, without batting an eyelid.
Why was it more meaningful on this occassion? I don’t know.
But here’s a consideration that might not always be prioritised: physical issues including pain.
Chronic pain (relating to OA) is linked with sound sensitivities (Lopes Fagundes et al 2018), so it’s reasonable to link pain with other environmental sensitivities, particularly if the seemingly sensitive response is unusual for the individual or for the context. (Mills et al, 2020)
When this happened, Decker was undergoing some treatment for an infection and was also taking pain relief. Seeing this, I supplemented his pain relief afterwards and made sure he got some good rest with appropriate activity.
We can be social models and supports for our dogs when something scary happens, reassure them, give them space and time to recover.
Also recognise that while behavioural responses are always environmental, the environmental conditions may be more or less salient dependent on the internal condition.
Pain, for example, may cause things to be more or less salient and may mean that fear related behaviour is more effective at keeping the behaver safe.
Fear related behaviours like these cautious and avoidant responses are more reinforcing (R-) when the body is experiencing stress and pain, and therefore functional and more likely to be repeated.
Dogs can’t be in pain. The better we become at spotting less obvious signs suggesting the dog may be in pain, the more efficiently we can treat pain, even if just-in-case.
Check out Mills et al, 2023, and consider pain as well as discomfort.
AniEd Ireland 