Animal expert issues advice to all women with dogs – ‘listen up’

An animal expert has urged all women with dogs to ‘listen up’ and pay attention to their dog’s behaviour, as some particular actions may be warning signs of something more sinister.

Pet owners will know that it can be difficult to spot any signs that your pet is feeling unwell until it’s too late to do something about it.

A trainer at the Howl School for Dogs, located in the northeast of England, has now urged dog owners – especially women – to not make excuses for their dog’s odd behaviour.

Instead, dog trainer Kerry is urging women in particular to listen to any possible signals that their furry friends are feeling unwell instead of dismissing unusual behaviour.

Kerry said in a TikTok video: “If, as a woman, you are tired of the way that society is dismissive of our needs and our feelings etcetera, and the way that society often uses reductive language like, ‘It’s a woman being hysterical’ or, ‘It’s a woman being a diva’, ‘It’s a woman being difficult’ – all of these kinds of things. Then we need to consider the language that we are also using with our dogs.”

In the caption of the video, she said she’s been talking to her doctor about premenipausual issues, but she felt the medical professional hadn’t taken her seriously and she was often interrupted.

She then applied the same logic to dogs, saying she often sees canines exhibiting behaviours indicative of stress or pain being dismissed as the dogs being ‘divas’ or naughty.

“And if we, as their closest loved ones, won’t advocate for them, it’s very hard for them to get the intervention they so desperately need,” she wrote in the caption.

She went on to tell her viewers: “Because so often, their needs and their emotions are minimised and trivialised as them just being a ‘princess’ or they just being a ‘diva’. And they can be a legitimate issue going on.”

Kerry explained that because dogs can’t tell us with words how they’re feeling or what might be wrong, it’s up to its owner to be ‘listening’ to any possible signals they might give us instead of dismissing it as them being a ‘diva’ or a ‘princess’.

“We need to be really open to listening to them and and not dismissing, not minimalising, not diminishing their experience, okay? Language matters. Pay attention and try not to dismiss,” Kerry said, adding in the captions: “Put yourself in their place and remember a time when you wanted to be heard and wasn’t.”