Fear & Confidence

Our review of a plug-in atomizer that dispenses a “dog appeasing pheromone” to calm especially anxious canines. According to its maker, DAP is supposed to mimic a natural stress-reducing hormone produced by mother dogs while nursing their puppies. It purportedly stops or reduces stress-related barking, urination and defecation, whimpering and whining, anxiety, fear, chewing, and other stress-related behaviors.

Many behaviorists and dog trainers believe that puppies go through a so-called fear imprinting" period sometime between the ages of eight to 20 weeks

People fear Rottweilers for a variety of reasons, and only a few of those reasons are due to the media. Some Rottie owners deliberately foster the intimidating look, fastening huge Gothic collars on their dogs and encouraging their dogs to be aggressive. Many Rottweilers are used for guard and protection work, a task they were bred for and excel at. And, face it, whether you want to blame nature or nurture (poor breeding or wrong-headed training), there are a certain number of aggressive, unpredictable, dangerous Rottweilers in the world.

Everyone knows a thunderstorm horror story. A terrified dog leaps off a balcony or breaks through a plate glass window before jumping a fence, running into traffic, and meeting an unhappy fate. Or the animal simply disappears and is never seen again. More common and just as distressing are the panic attacks that overcome stay-at-home dogs when thunder roars or the neighbors light firecrackers. Conventional veterinary medicine treats thunderstorm and other noise phobias with powerful tranquilizers or psychoactive drugs, none of which cure the patient and all of which have adverse side effects.

As unlikely as it sounds, one of the most effective treatments for thunderstorm phobias may be an over-the-counter hormone used by humans to prevent insomnia. Melatonin, produced by the pineal gland, sets the body’s internal clock in response to exposure to light. The body creates melatonin only in total darkness, for the pineal gland stops production when any part of the body, even the back of the leg, is exposed to light. In people, melatonin has been shown to calm the nerves, reduce anxiety, relieve panic disorders, prevent migraine headaches, facilitate deep sleep, and, according to some researchers, help slow the effects of aging.