If you are worried about pet stress because your furry friend is having a rough time with staying calm and cool, you are not alone. Literally millions of people around the world struggle with their pets having an excessive amount of stress due to various behavioral conditions and other factors that go along with having a pet. The one thing that you can do is educate yourself and get a better understanding of what stress is in animals, and what you can do to prevent it.

First Things First – Animals Change With Stress

If you have a pet that suffers from stress, or separation anxiety it is easy to see that whenever they are under the influences of stress that their behavior changes dramatically. For example, if a dog or a cat typically is calm and relaxed, whenever a stressful situation occurs they will tense up and act much differently. Some dogs can become aggressive and boisterous. Some cats can become hissy and furious. Although it is very obvious that stress changes the behavior of an animal, it is important to make sure that pet owners know that animals can become dangerous when they are under a lot of stress. No matter how cute and loving they may seem, when their survival instincts kick in they can not help but be overly protective of themselves and the ones that they want to protect. Although a dog may not ever attack you, as an owner, they could attack other people and inadvertently injure you or somebody else in the process.

Remain Calm With Their Stress

If your pet is stressed out to the max and you become stressed as well, you are only adding fuel to the fire. Your tone of voice and the way that you carry yourself is very evident to your pets. Especially dogs. They can tell just by the tone of your voice when you are angry, fearful, relaxed, or whatever. If you become stressed and start yelling at them because they are acting strange, you will not be helping them at all. In fact, it is never a good idea to yell or scream at your pet. They do not see things the same way that we do, so when you get upset you could be encouraged to be upset right alongside you. 

Always remain calm and reassuring to your pet when they are suffering from a tremendous amount of stress. Although you may not notice it, your demeanor makes all of the difference in the world to your pet.

Causes of Pet Stress

Some pets are full of stress just because of the breed that they are, or because of something that has happened to them in the past that caused them to be afraid of things. If an animal is simply hardwired to be stressed out, there are not many things that you can do to relieve the stress other than to be supportive. Many owners try pet CBD to calm their animals down, but whether or not this is right for you is a matter of the health of your pet and the medications that it might already be taking.

Many pets get overly excited and stressed out when strangers come to the door and make unfamiliar sounds. Dogs especially like to bark and let you know that something is amiss. In most cases, the stress goes away as soon as the intruder is checked out and analyzed.

Pets do not like loud booms of illegal fireworks. During the pandemic when everybody was forced to stay home for party holidays like the 4th of July and the New Year the whole country seemed to have a never-ending supply of illegal fireworks. When this happens, pets that are not used to the booms have a really hard time staying calm without help.

What  You Can Do

What you can do in the event that your pet suffers from an overwhelming amount of stress is to simply be supportive. There are claiming vests and different products available for pets that claim to be able to keep them calm, but whether or not they really work is still debatable. The one thing that you can do is to stay calm let your pet know that you are there.