House dogs are more anxious than expected – Chronicle

House dogs are more anxious than expected. Noise is the first source of disturbance, followed by fear. This is indicated by the research published in the journal Scientific Reports, by the group of the Finnish University of Helsinki, coordinated by Hannes Lohi. Behavioral problems and anxieties in dogs, the researchers write, reduce their quality of life and can lead some owners to give up on them. For this reason, and considering the large number of companion dogs, the researchers wanted to explore the incidence of anxiety in these animals thanks to a survey conducted on 13,700 dogs. 72.5% of the animals in the sample were found to have behaviors related to states of anxiety, including aggression and fear. The first cause of anxiety for four-legged friends is noise: 32% of the dogs in the sample get anxious if they hear a noise and in first place there is that of fireworks. Dogs also fidget when they hear thunder, but this mostly happens with age. The second most common form of anxiety that emerged from the research is fear, found in 29% of dogs.