Dog Body Language - Understanding Canine Stress
- Sally Gutteridge
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 18
One of the things I see most often is the body language of stress in dogs, not being recognised by their people.
This is really sad as body language is honest and open communication that tells us how the dog feels.
Being able to read and understand their language means that our dogs can feel understood and also safe in our company.
To fully understand canine body language, especially they type that tells us dogs are uncomfortable, it’s important to know a little about stress and how it affects the dog’s behaviour from the inside out.
What is Canine Stress?
Taking two forms, stress can be useful in short bursts for learning or achieving peak performance.
Think about a time you had an important task to complete and performed better than ever before to achieve a specific aim.
This type of stress is called eustress, and it provides an excellent learning boost for both people and dogs.
Now imagine that the task was too big for you to achieve, even with the presence of eustress, or something was too frightening for you to cope with.
When we are overwhelmed, we go beyond eustress into distress, and so do our dogs.
The dog’s ability to cope with stress will shift from eustress to distress based on his individual capacity for coping.
As he enters distress, we can consider that he has gone beyond his coping threshold.
This is when his survival instinct kicks in and stress becomes damaging enough to affect the immune system, digestive system, and hormone levels in the body.
Stress is a response of the dog’s nervous system, which is based purely on keeping the dog alive and safe. It’s an internal process that the dog has no control over.
Stress affects all animals and people in fact, anyone with a central nervous system will experience stress because it’s our natural survival switch.
The thing that makes a dog stressed is commonly known as a trigger. The stress trigger activates the stress response, and the dog experiences an influx of adrenaline (a body stress chemical) and cortisol (a brain stress chemical), preparing him to fight or flee.
There are a couple of other possible stress responses: fooling around or freezing. Each of these responses looks different in the dog:
Canine Flight Response
Flight is when the dog chooses to leave the situation to avoid any kind of fight. Flight is now often rare in domestic dogs because they are on a lead or otherwise prevented from fleeing.
Flight may not always mean running away at full speed; it could be something as simple as going around an approaching dog in a healthy curve while off lead, to avoid possible confrontation.
Canine Fight Response
Fight is when the dog chooses to face his fears head-on. This is perfectly natural in wild animals, but in domestic dogs, we often unknowingly place them in situations where they feel they have no choice but to fight.
Something as simple as walking towards another dog—with our own dog on the lead—on a forest trail can stress a worried dog enough to make him feel he can’t escape, so he displays fight behaviour. It’s simply because he is stressed by the other dog, who is his trigger, and he can’t help it.
However, how many times have you seen a dog blamed and punished for this kind of behaviour? I expect it’s quite a few.
Canine Fool Around Response
Fooling around is another active response to stress. It can manifest as height-seeking, hand-nipping, or general hyperactivity. Sometimes, stress-based fooling around looks like play, but it doesn’t have the same relaxed stance. The dog looks more tense and desperate in this state.
Canine Freeze Response
Freeze is most often practised by prey animals. For example, if a rabbit in a field sees a fox approaching, his entire body will freeze in the hope that lack of movement will prevent him from being seen.
Domestic dogs are now neither predator nor prey, but they can freeze and hope that a threat goes away, just like the rabbit. The dog who suffers from choice depression or trauma is most likely to freeze because he has learned that no amount of effort brings safety—so he just waits it out.
Understanding these stress responses is vital for anyone living or working with dogs. When we recognise the signs of eustress and distress, and observe whether a dog is leaning toward flight, fight, fooling around, or freeze, we gain insight into their emotional state.
With that knowledge, we can support their wellbeing more compassionately and avoid placing them in situations that exceed their ability to cope.
Want to learn more? Much much more?
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