This is More Common Than You Think

“Nothing really happened… but my dog has seemed different ever since.”

This is more common than you think.

Sometimes the event that changes behaviour doesn’t look particularly significant to us.

A slip on the floor.

A sudden noise.

An uncomfortable interaction.

A painful movement.

Being startled somewhere familiar.

One difficult journey.

Something appearing unexpectedly.

We don’t get to decide how significant an experience was based solely on how dramatic it looked from the outside.

Learning is happening all the time.

The nervous system is constantly gathering information about what predicts safety, discomfort, uncertainty and threat.

So if your dog’s behaviour changes after something that seemed “small”, you don’t have to prove that the event was bad enough to matter.

The change in behaviour is information.

And information deserves curiosity. 🩵