Mary Allen
How much does the four-legged friend’s past affect his future life? What chances does a traumatized dog have and where is the limit of what can be achieved? What possible disadvantages can the animal shelter mean later in life?
A traumatized dog does not necessarily have to have its trauma from human abuse. If you dive deep into epigenetics, it becomes clear that experiences in the womb can already influence your entire future life. If the mother dog has been stressed, whether by finding food, life on the street, or a bad home, these experiences affect the puppies’ organism long before they are born. In the worst case, metabolic processes are negatively influenced and even stress resistance can be significantly reduced for the rest of your life. What does this mean for dogs that have been in shelters, lived as strays, or have been mistreated?
Triggers Produce Stress Reactions
If you have experienced trauma, so-called triggers can become effective again and again, causing massive stress reactions in the body or possibly affecting all further behavior and well-being.
But – and this is the great advantage that animals have over humans – dogs live in the moment! They don’t think as we do about events that happened in the past. They don’t quarrel with what happened, even if they are victims or possibly remain traumatized forever. Where humans act purposefully with understanding and create rituals that provide security in frightening situations, the animal can discard deadlocked behavior and learn new connections.
Overcome Trauma
Depending on the intensity of the experiences, formerly anxious dogs can never put their past aside, but they can cope with it in the sense of a better quality of life – if the new environment allows and promotes this. Dogs going forward or retreating
have not necessarily had bad experiences.
Having no experience hurts the organism. It can be proven that the brains of individuals who grew up under deprivation have significantly fewer nerve connections than those of individuals who received early support.
The pup raised with toys, siblings, motherly love, and human care will always have a much better start than those who weren’t so fortunate. Even more: He will be able to cope better with stress and new situations, bond more intensively, be more balanced, learn faster and more, be able to concentrate better and much more
A prime example of the “second life” after trauma is husky lady Tinkerbell. The former animal shelter dog won EM silver in Canicross. Panic fear and aggression towards men turned – thanks to intensive work – into love towards her new master!
If dogs with a traumatic past win victory, for example in competitions or in terms of their further development, this means above all that people have invested a lot of energy and time – in exactly those in the animal world who
can need our understanding and knowledge the most!