Is Your Dog Trying to Tell You Something? 5 Subtle Signs Your Pet Is Feeling Lonely
If you thought those were the signals of bad behavior or fatigue, there’s some bad news for you.
Every dog owner knows for sure that their pet belongs to one of those animals that need human contact the most. However, even with people seemingly establishing this contact with dogs, the latter ones often give signals that humans don’t interpret as a demand of help.
To make things worse, those are considered an indication of bad behavior or the dog’s fatigue after an active day. To see whether your pet lacks some attention from you, make sure you’re aware of these five specific signals.
Your Dog Destroys Everything Around While Alone
Traditionally, this is interpreted as the dog’s lack of manners and the most certain sign that it needs to learn how to stay alone at home for a long period of time. However, it’s likely that the dog simply has nothing else to do and spends its time destroying furniture or your footwear, trying to suppress the anxiety of being “abandoned” by its owner for the whole day.
In this case, try teaching your dog to stay at home alone and provide it with all kinds of interactive toys.
Your Dog Follows You Wherever You Go
Though it seems cute at first, the constant following from one room to another soon becomes pretty annoying for the owner. It’s a problem for the dog as well since there’s a clear sign of the pet’s overdependence and fear of staying at home alone.
To make this go away, give your dog their own space (for instance, a pet bed in one of the rooms’ corner) and teach it to remain there for at least some time while you’re away.
Your Dog Barks or Howls All the Time
The dog’s constant use of its vocal cords is one of the clearest signs that it’s trying to draw its owner’s attention to something it’s not comfortable with.
Don’t try scolding your dog for barking or howling, instead make sure you spend some time with it so that the dog doesn’t feel lonely — for example, take the pet for a longer walk.
Your Dog Isn’t Interested in Games
Despite this also being one of the symptoms for health issues, in many cases it only means that the dog is bored or lacks motivation to play games and spend the day in an active way.
To improve the situation, take your dog for walks to different places or start teaching them new commands.
Your Dog Acts Weirdly During Walks
If your pet is clearly uninterested in everything going on around it while outside and doesn’t even want to go for a walk, it might also mean that it wants to spend time with you in a different way.
In cases like this, you can turn formal walks into a shared adventure by bringing toys for your dog to play with during the stroll, or just try running alongside your dog and play with it yourself.
