“Cures” for Dog Anxiety: Why Is Lying Down the Goal?

Merchandise that purport to assist canines with concern and anxiousness have an fascinating factor in frequent. Their advertising nearly all the time portrays canines mendacity down. Simply take a look at their featured pictures: snoozing pups. Plainly mendacity down, wanting drowsy and relaxed, is the purpose. However the reverse of concern or anxiousness will not be sleep.

You already know what canines free from concern or anxiousness do? Effectively, numerous issues!

They might:

play with their human or canine associates

sniff

chase varmints

chew

dig

solicit petting from their people

countersurf

be taught methods

grasp round people who’re consuming, making googly eyes

take pleasure in a stroll

play agility

However we don’t often see images of those actions. We see canines mendacity down with implied ZZZs floating above their heads.

As an individual who has had two canines with phobias, I perceive. It is much better to see them resting than shivering and drooling miserably. It’s a manner for corporations to painting (often untruthfully) that their product “cures” anxiousness. However what’s even higher: canines going about their regular life with out concern.

Many of those merchandise exploit house owners’ nervousness about behavioral drugs and vilify them. However thoughtfully chosen and thoroughly administered drugs are one of many interventions for canines with excessive concern that’s almost certainly to assist (Riemer, 2023). These sellers suggest or declare outright that such meds create zombie canines. Then, mockingly, many submit pictures of canines that look sedated to promote their very own merchandise.

Zani was on behavioral meds on the time I filmed this agility video. Sound on for the total impact.

Zani’s not the one one. Take a look at this thread from the Fearful Canines group on Fb: That is my canine on medicine. Be aware what number of canines within the 92 feedback aren’t sleeping.

Aid for the Human

If my canine is anxiously pacing, even trembling or drooling, then begins to calm and lies down, what do I really feel? As an individual who loves my canine and needs her to be blissful and cozy, I really feel reduction. Whew! She is mendacity down; she should really feel higher.

This reduction can even occur when an animal hides. I’ve written a submit in regards to the delusion that hiding animals are comfy and their wants taken care of. One thing I didn’t point out is that when an animal hides, we will’t see their misery. Out of sight, out of thoughts. If we will’t see their struggling, we really feel reduction. And the corollary with product advertising is that if a canine is mendacity down being quiet, we will consider they really feel superb.

I’m not condemning this response of reduction. When our beloved pet is distressed and we will’t assist them, it may be agonizing. The weeks earlier than Zani received medical assist for her generalized anxiousness and panic dysfunction in 2016 have been among the many saddest of my life.

However there’s a grim aspect. This promoting has a secondary objective. Once more, sleep will not be the alternative of concern. However you can pretty name sleep the alternative of overarousal or hyperactivity. Numerous pictures of sleeping canines might serve to influence house owners that they gained’t be bothered by their canines in the event that they purchase the product.

I consider most individuals who purchase merchandise to assist their fearful or phobic canines do it out of affection. They need their canines to be blissful and freed from concern. However an individual can have a couple of motivation. Somebody who’s threatened by their landlord about their barking canine wants an answer, fast. Somebody who’s sleep disadvantaged as a result of their canine paces and whimpers all night time wants desperately for the canine to settle down. Somebody who didn’t plan for his or her life with their canine to be like this and is out of endurance simply needs their canine to cease already.

Entrepreneurs for bogus merchandise prey on these folks. Their purpose is to to persuade potential prospects that the product will clear up their issues (and that they need to purchase it proper now!). Footage of sleeping canines are potent. It might be one factor if the merchandise labored to set off that response. However the sound, music, and plenty of different merchandise haven’t any evidential assist for his or her claims.

For comparability: commercials for psychiatric meds for people don’t present them mendacity down and sleeping. They stroll round parks, play tennis, go to with their kids or grandchildren, blow out candles at their birthday events. They give the impression of being (quite obnoxiously) blissful and engaged. So why do we would like our canines asleep, once more?

Sedation

With all my images of an lively canine on habits meds, and my complaints about “sleeping canine” advertising, chances are you’ll get the impression that I’m in opposition to sedation. I’m not. Right here is my very own real-life “sleeping canine” picture. This was Lewis’ first Independence Day after he began to undergo from sound phobia. He had been on upkeep drugs for six months and I had continued to countercondition to sudden noises. He was doing very properly with day-to-day sounds. However I knew my neighborhood’s “hours o’ fireworks” could be an excessive amount of for him. I gave him, per my vet’s suggestion, a drugs that helped him chill out and sleep. I used to be additionally using sound masking: a dryer recording, a fan, and a few “busy” music with out modifications in quantity. He might nonetheless operate. He was blissful to stand up and work together along with his folks or go exterior for a loo break. However after that, he would return to sleep. It was a mercy for him.

However sedation will not be my final purpose. I consider it’s much better for a canine’s concern to be addressed in ways in which permit them to dwell their regular life, as you possibly can see within the pictures and the film of Zani above.

It might be higher nonetheless if these phony merchandise that declare to treatment anxiousness and phobias in canines would knock it off with their manipulative and exploitative practices. Numerous canines undergo due to delays in reaching evidence-based interventions as their folks go down the ratholes of web advertising.

Associated Sources and Posts

References

Riemer, S. (2020). Effectiveness of remedies for firework fears in canines. Journal of Veterinary Conduct, 37, 61-70.

Riemer, S. (2023). Remedy and Prevention of Noise Fears in Canines—A Evaluation of the Present Proof for Practitioners. Animals, 13(23), 3664.

Copyright 2026 Eileen Anderson