After a year of Mandates and restrictions and fear porn on the nightly nooze, a lot of people have grown a bit paranoid. They get all kinds of weird if they see someone without a mask, and shy away from… well, everybody. Must preserve Social Distancing, you know. And can we double up on those face masks?
Well, guess what! Having made ourselves crazy, now we’re working on our dogs. See the article on Dr. Becker’s veterinary site, https://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2021/03/14/canine-fear-and-anxiety.aspx?ui=a26451ca60f77065e240c7fb026545a41b6fb38badaf00b35456684a9778d9bd&sd=20080201&cid_source=petsnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20210314Z1&mid=DM823320&rid=1106568324 .
No joke: researchers report “canine fears and anxiety” have built up to a record high, here in America and probably elsewhere, too. Its most common expression is “noise sensitivity,” but “fearfulness toward humans” is high on the list.
Well… duh! Facial expressions are very important to dogs. Dogs read humans’ facial expressions. Now everybody’s wearing a mask. Dogs are in tune with their owners: our uneasiness, our fearfulness, rubs off on them. If you’re habitually nervous, your dog will be, too. Happy people have happy dogs. Miserable people have miserable dogs.
And there’s also other stuff we do, apart from King COVID’s rule, to mess up our dogs’ minds.
We overbreed them like crazy. Everybody’s gotta have a pedigreed dog. Nobody wants just a dog dog anymore. Overbreeding leads to inborn neurotic behavior in dogs.
And then there’s that fad for keeping the poor dog penned up in a crate every day for hours at a time. If you don’t think that would contribute to an overall affliction of canine fearfulness, you’re just not thinking. But people do that because it’s convenient for them, not the dog.
And all of this, every jot and tittle of it, has been brought to you by Government Science and The Smartest People In The World.