At the end of 2016, Ang Lee's "Billy Lynn's Midfield War", filmed revolutionarily using 120 frames/4K/3D technology, telling the story of the 19-year-old American soldier Billy Lynn's heroic performance in the Iraq War. Both he and his comrades became representatives of American heroes.
He became a hero because of a video of him sacrificing himself to save the captain on the battlefield. That day, he finally killed the enemy in close combat in order to save the captain. Then when he turned around, the captain who had been shot was already dead. There is no victory at all, everyone is defeated.
Billy Lynn said: "Someone is here to praise you for the worst day in your life." Douban movie reviews say, "VR viewing of large-scale PTSDs."
Baidu Encyclopedia explains that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) refers to the delayed and persistent mental disorder caused by an individual's delay in the occurrence and persistence of an individual after an individual experiences, witnesses or encounters one or more actual deaths involving himself or others, or is threatened by death, or is seriously injured, or is threatened with physical integrity.
You may have heard that people suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. When we remember Wenchuan in recent years, we have begun to pay attention to the "aftershocks" in the hearts of those who have survived. Xinshixiang once wrote an article "I still haven't run out after 9 years | The rest of my life after the earthquake", reminding us that people's hearts are still needed to be rebuilt after the disaster.
While we are paying attention to the post-disaster reconstruction of people, have you ever thought that dogs will also suffer from PTSD? When a dog experiences some trauma, it will also suffer from PTSD. He won't get PTSD because you hit him in the nose while he chews a pillow, but when he has experienced the following things, he may get PTSD:
1. Natural disasters, such as hurricane transit, 2}
2. Abandoned in the wild, 3. Lost its owner 4. Military attack
5. Physical or mental abuse
6. A serious accident
7. Vicious battles with other animals (including wars between dogs)
The signs of dogs suffering from PTSD and other anxiety disorders in dogs are often so difficult to distinguish. But when they have the following abnormalities, combined with the trauma they have experienced, it may be PTSD:
1. Peeing in the house
2. Howling or wailing
3. Destructive behavior
Dogs with PTSD are likely to show some signs:
1. Clamping the tail
2. Drooping ears
3. Gasping
4. Crouching on the ground
Other clues about your dog's possible PTSD:
1. He holds you in fear and keeps you back to the point of
2. Sudden attack
3. Depression
4. High attention to the surrounding environment.
A person with PTSD requires psychotherapist intervention, and if a dog has PTSD, any medical history you know about his adverse experience can help your veterinarian make the right diagnosis.
A behavioral training called systemic desensitization is common for dogs with PTSD, exposing your dog to anything that makes it anxious or fearful. For example, if noise is a trigger, then desensitization treatment can be used in the form of noise and food appearing simultaneously. When your dog will hear the noise quietly, you provide him with delicious food. As long as he keeps calm, the noise will slowly increase and the food will continue to flow. After multiple matches, the dog will associate noise with food instead of fear.
This is also the purpose of systemic desensitization treatment, allowing your dog to associate triggers with treatment, not trauma. Other important parts of PTSD treatment include daily exercise, play and active intensive training, which can take weeks or years. It may not cure PTSD, but it can help your dog live a healthy and happy life as long as you limit it to the things that can trigger tension.
However, do you still remember the story shared by Ning Wei, a pet behavior trainer, before? The border herder was beaten for improper defecation in the kennel for many years, so it extremely repels defecation behavior and even takes the initiative to eat all the feces in front of it to avoid being beaten. This is a typical case of a dog suffering from PTSD. Ning Wei also used desensitization treatment for it, using sausages to guide it to stop eating feces. We all know the results of the experiment. What the dog actually learned is that only Ning Wei is present can it stop eating feces. When others are present, it still eats them. The intervention of the
desensitization experiment is essentially a guided remedy. When I was young, those unpleasant experiences made a mark on the dogs are also lifelong, and perhaps they are irreparable.
However, when searching for relevant information on "How to treat dogs with PTSD", we found that except for desensitization treatment, we tried to find reference methods to treat dogs' PTSD. But we regret to find that among the most mentioned PTSD treatment methods for humans, the keyword "telling", which is also common in other psychotherapy in humans.
However, we have no common language system between us and our dogs, so we cannot perceive each other accurately. The only thing we can do is to prevent the dog from connecting the world with fearful things through patient desensitization treatment and emotional commonality.
In addition to PTSD, dogs' psychological problems are often overlooked. Now that we hear more about dog depression, we should realize that even dogs who have not experienced severe trauma can cause anxiety or aggressive fears.. The most common ones are:
1. Thunder
2. Fire
3. Children
4. Men
5. Take a car
6. Go downstairs
7. Shadow
Some dogs are born to be afraid, but most of them are because of things they experienced or have not happened when they were kids. It may be living in a storm, or it may be just a lack of opportunities to contact people. Although a dog does not have PTSD, it does not mean that its behavior does not have difficulty in controlling the owner and does not have potential danger to others.
So dogs' fear needs to be managed. What should you do once your dog starts showing fear or aggressiveness? It's different from the way you treat your child. You don't provide comfort, such as comforting, kissing. These things won't let your dog know that everything will be fine, instead, these behaviors tell it that it's OK to show fear or be aggressive and that it won't change because it feels that it's right.
The easiest way to overcome a dog's fear and anxiety is to divert its attention and do something else with him. If he is barking at the staff at your home, calmly clamp the belt and start practicing commanding it with snacks.
The thing you need to remember is that you are the owner of the dog. Your behavior teaches your dog when and when not to worry. While being responsible for the dog, you must also be responsible for its fear.