Several factors can contribute to a dog’s lack of confidence. Poor socialization during their critical developmental period, lack of positive reinforcement, and negative experiences due to punishment are some of the primary reasons behind a dog’s low self-assurance. Some dogs may also have a genetic predisposition to being less confident than others. Identifying the root cause of your dog’s insecurity is crucial in addressing and rectifying the issue, helping them live a happier, and more cheerful, life.

A dog suffering from stress or anxiety due to low confidence may develop various health problems over time. Stress can take a toll on a dog’s body, leading to destructive behavior, self-harm, or even aggression. Moreover, such behaviors can negatively impact the bond between you and your dog and create potential hazards around other people and animals. Addressing your dog’s lack of confidence is not just essential for their well-being but also for maintaining a harmonious relationship.

If you’re confused about how to diagnose this problem, don’t worry. To identify if your dog lacks confidence, pay attention to their body language. Signs such as a lowered or tucked tail, freezing in place, barking, growling, lunging, or snapping could indicate discomfort or fear. Recognizing these signals will help you address the issue promptly and provide the necessary support to build your dog’s confidence.

Positive reinforcement is the foundation for increasing your dog’s confidence. Exposure to new experiences, people, and places with positive reinforcement can help desensitize your dog to unfamiliar situations. Gradual introductions to what they fear, accompanied by praise and treats, will allow them to associate positivity with those experiences. Additionally, engaging your dog with activities that challenge their minds, such as food puzzles and scent work, can further boost their self-assurance. Teaching behaviors like touch, in which your dog touches their nose to your hand on cue, can provide a sense of security and facilitate positive interactions with unfamiliar people.

It’s common for new parents to make a frantic call to their pediatricians when they find out about new symptoms in their infants. While these irregular symptoms sometimes can call for true emergencies, surprisingly, many of them aren’t at all dangerous. Rapidly changing hormones and physical immaturity can make a newborn’s body react in many unpredictable ways. Here are a few scary-looking but normal baby symptoms to put your mind at ease.

If your baby twitches or jerks during sleep, even uncontrollably, it’s totally harmless if it stops instantly when the baby awakes. According to pediatricians, these seizure-like symptoms are a harmless phenomenon named benign sleep myoclonus. Pediatric neurologist Dr. Michael Zimbric explains that the immature nervous systems in babies make their movements even more uncoordinated during sleep, but it’s entirely harmless.

We always link symptoms like a stuffy nose or abnormal breathing with a cold. But in the case of infants, congested sound and breathing is a normal form of stuffiness, which is caused by the estrogen hormone stimulating the nasal passages. This condition usually subsides within two months, whether the baby is formula-fed or breastfed. By six months, a baby’s nasal passages double in size, alleviating the stuffiness.

Symptoms during sleep like intermittent or mild erratic breathing in a baby can look alarming. But in reality, irregular or periodic breathing is quite common in infants. As pediatricians explain, babies generally breathe faster, as they have smaller lungs compared to their bodies. They also have underdeveloped chemical sensors that detect CO2 in our bodies. So, sometimes they pause breathing until the CO2 levels are high enough to trigger those sensors to work.

If you ever notice a warm red lump on the chest of your newborn baby, don’t panic! Symptoms like chest lumps can form in both infant boys and girls and are caused by estrogen. The excess estrogen level falls in a baby after birth, making the milk-producing hormone prolactin increase temporarily. This results in mild breast growth, often on just one side, in at least 50% of healthy newborns. It vanishes within the first month or lasts for three months.

If your baby’s skin suddenly turns orange-shaded, it’s a common phenomenon named carotenemia, which doesn’t affect adults. This is caused by eating a lot of beta-carotene-rich veggies like carrots and sweet potatoes, mashed or pureed. It also comes with several non-orange veggies like broccoli and spinach. The color will fade as your baby’s diet changes.