Punishing does not correct fear. Punishing creates more fear in an already fearful response. Unfortunately, many in society think that punishing fear reactive behavior works. It doesn’t. Not even a little.
If an animal is already fearful, and you come in with authoritative, scary, presence and reaction they find more reasons to be afraid. They lose even more trust in you, and potentially all humans. It just creates MORE fear, which will create MORE fearful behaviors.
A fearful animal needs reassurance, patience, love, and guidance.
Even in a non fearful animal, a correction should never cause fear. If it does, you are doing more damage and creating MORE behavioral issues.
All animals need to feel safe all the time. Especially the fearful ones.
A lot of behaviors are mislabeled as aggression, when truly, these behaviors are fear reactions. Love, patience, and gentleness will make an animal feel more secure. That’s what eases the behavior. Not bullying them. Not yelling at them. Not hitting them or grabbing them.
I encourage you to look at behaviors differently. Is there a fear or insecurity trigger? And if so, what can you do to support your animal and help your animal feel safer and more secure instead of losing your patience, yelling, or labeling your animal as reactive or aggressive.
All behaviors can be eased with love, kindness, and patience. Force, authority, and fear based corrections (yelling, hitting, grabbing) are cruel and will cause an animal to live in fear and uncertainty. It’s what causes resource guarding. They become afraid of a humans approach for the fear of the unknown. Will this be a kind interaction? Or a scary one?
Our animals are meant to live along side of us in a loving environments. We are here to protect them and care for them, not scare them, not bully them, and surely not dominate them.
I encourage you and challenge you, every time you are faced with an undesirable behavior from your animal, every time you lose your patience, stop, take a deep breath and say, “How can gently and kindly support this animal with love and patience and help my animal feel safe?”.
Please share this. If we can help even one less animal feel more fear, it’s worth it. We can create a ripple of change throughout society so animals are treated with patience, love and kindness. The truth is, most people just don’t know any differently. We can change that. We can educate them that there is a better way than what tradition has told us.
To set up a private reading text 1-207-849-0096 or email Angie@AngieMorin.com