Dog Anxiety vs High Sensitivity: How to Tell Which one is Affecting Your Pup

By Shannon Cutts.

Is your dog anxious? Highly sensitive? Both? Is there any reliable way to tell these two traits apart, let alone determine which one (if either) affects your pet dog?

Happily, the answer to that question is yes. You will find all the information you need to get started in this article.

Defining Dog Anxiety vs High Sensitivity

Let’s start our exploration by establishing a clear definition of each trait.

Anxiety.

Anxiety as a heritable trait is defined as a stress reaction characterized by persistent or repetitive feelings of dread, worry and/or fear. In dogs, these feelings are typically identified via behavioral responses.

High sensitivity.

Now renamed sensory processing sensitivity, high sensitivity as a heritable trait is characterized by heightened central nervous system sensitivity to a range of sensory stimuli, including physical, emotional and social.

2 Main Factors That Lead to Unwanted Symptoms

Now let’s take a look at the two main factors that might cause your dog to display behavioral symptoms of anxiety and/or high sensitivity.

Nature.

New research highlights a solid genetic component for both traits. Sadly, modern dog breeding practices are now linked to increased incidence of anxiety in certain breed lines. Additionally, sensory processing sensitivity has been identified in more than 100 species to date and is thought to affect approximately 20 percent of a given species – dogs included.

Nurture.

There is no question that nurture, often defined as the combination of environment, caregiving, diet, enrichment and health, factors into how each trait may show up in a given dog’s life. A dog who grows up from puppyhood in a stable, loving home with great nutrition and veterinary care is far less likely to display problematic symptoms of either trait than a dog who endures any degree of the opposite.

3 Reasons It Can Be Hard to Tell Dog Anxiety and High Sensitivity Apart

What makes it so difficult to tell dog anxiety apart from canine sensory processing sensitivity (cSPS)? As a dog parent or carer, you will face three major obstacles on the road to identifying what is troubling your pup.

Similar symptoms.

For starters, many of the behaviors traditionally associated with canine anxiety and cSPS are quite similar. As an example of this, one recent canine anxiety research study cited symptoms such as noise sensitivity, compulsion, aggression, fearfulness, separation or attachment and reactivity. Each of these symptoms can be witnessed in dogs with cSPS as well.

Co-occurrence.

The truth is, it is absolutely possible for a dog to be both highly sensitive and anxious. Dogs with cSPS who live in an unbuffered environment may over time develop genuine anxiety and even PTSD. In the same way, dogs suffering from anxiety may grow less and less tolerant of their symptoms over time, to the point where they present as highly sensitive, even though genetically they have not inherited this trait.

Lack of prior history.

Without knowing the full history of your dog’s temperament and personality, it becomes that much harder to pinpoint onset of symptoms and possible triggers. For instance, did symptoms first arise due to a traumatic event in your dog’s past? Or has generalized sensitivity to a wide range of sensory stimuli always been present?

Identifying Dog Anxiety

Canine anxiety can be heritable, but unlike stress, anxiety itself is far from normal. And unlike with the trait of high sensitivity, there is no inherent evolutionary advantage to anxiety. Researchers have identified two main ways anxiety may appear in dogs.

From birth.

As mentioned here earlier, recent research studies highlight the possible genetic transference of high anxiety as a trait setpoint in certain breed lines. In these cases, a puppy may present with symptoms as part of their core temperament, even separate and apart from the developmental fear periods and/or other environmental triggers. As an animal communicator, I often hear pet parents describe these pups as “always on high alert.” It isn’t just one thing that triggers their anxiety – it is life itself that is the trigger.

From trauma.

Dogs are popular research models for human medicine for good reason. Dogs and humans can be triggered by similar stress events and symptoms often look alike, right down to the different categories of anxiety they can develop (i.e. generalized, social, noise….all the way to post-traumatic stress disorder). With these traumatized dogs, identifying the specific trigger(s) will go a long way towards distinguishing anxiety from high sensitivity.

To that point, if you are not aware of your dog’s puppyhood temperament set point, and you don’t know their life history prior to when they joined your family, the best way to identify dog anxiety is to analyze situational triggers and responses.

Triggers for true dog anxiety may or may not have anything to do with sensory stimuli such as bright lights or strong smells. An example might be a dog who displays symptoms around tall men in ballcaps or before car rides but remains calm around small yappy dogs or while home alone. This dog is likely suffering from trauma-based anxiety rather than genetic (birth) anxiety or high sensitivity.

Identifying canine Sensory Processing Sensitivity (cSPS)

Unlike with dog anxiety, there is only one way a dog can be highly sensitive, and that is to inherit the trait. Regardless of species, sensory processing sensitivity is now understood to be a neurodivergent evolutionary trait with clear survival benefits.

In a wild state, how might it benefit a dog to inherit the cSPS trait? Let’s say a pack of wild dogs is out hunting when suddenly lightning strikes and a wildfire begins. At onset, 80 percent of the pack decides to try to outrun the fire by staying ahead of its leading edge.

The other 20 percent of the pack hang back, observing the situation from as far away as possible before choosing a course of action. This smaller cohort decides to dig a deep burrow to shelter underground as the fire swallows the land above.

Neither strategy is a sure win. However, by adopting two different strategies, it becomes much more likely that at least some of the pack will survive the wildfire to pass along their DNA. Researchers believe this is precisely how and why sensory processing sensitivity originally got coded into the DNA of so many different animal species, including our own.

Seen in this light, high sensitivity makes smart evolutionary sense. However, for the highly sensitive modern dog living in our artificial world of bright lights, surround sound, noisy holidays, dense crowds and erratic daily schedules, it frequently adds up to chronic sensory overload from which there is no escape.

Here, the hands-down best way to identify cSPS in your pup is to observe their response to a variety of sensory stimuli. Is it just loud noises that trigger symptoms? Or does your dog seem bothered by a wide variety of strong sensory experiences yet remains unbothered by non-sensory stimuli? As you modulate their environment with sensory buffering tools, do your dog’s symptoms stay the same or do they noticeably ease?

Does Your Dog Have Anxiety or High Sensitivity?

By now you have a clear working knowledge of canine anxiety and canine Sensory Processing Sensitivity (cSPS), their similarities and differences. Yet it may still feel far from simple to identify what is triggering your dog’s symptoms.

This is often the point where pet parents find themselves thinking, “I wish I could just ask my dog what is wrong and how to help them!” The truth is, you can ask them. When I first started communicating with animals, I didn’t specifically set out to specialize in pets with high sensitivity and anxiety. But my own background as a highly sensitive person who has also recovered from trauma-based anxiety quite naturally began to draw in anxious, highly sensitive pets and their people. From the start, it has been easy for me to talk with these animals about what they are experiencing and what they need to feel safe and at ease.

Shannon Cutts is a professional animal sensitive and intuitive, Reiki Master and animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages. Shannon’s global client base seeks her out for help with pet anxiety, highly sensitive pets, pet transition, pet reincarnation, interspecies family dynamics and more. If you are struggling to identify the root cause of your dog’s symptoms or behaviors, animal communication can help. Visit me at: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/connect/