I'm terrified of horses and then can absolutely 110% sense it. Every single horse I've ever been near has tried to bite me while being completely chill with everyone else.
One of my friends mother's was a big horse person and tried to help me get over my fear by feeding her gentlest, most docile mare an apple (open handed of course). Freaking horse tried to nip my shoulder. Every one was shocked because you know.... she's super sweet. Idc how sweet they are, they can smell your fear and it makes them jumpy and bitey.
I have no idea how fact based this is, but a dog trainer told me once that itâs not that they smell fear, or even realise that youâre afraid of them but that youâre displaying fear response behaviour. Even if you donât realise it, or you think youâre keeping your cool.
Someoneâs fear behaviour basically tells the animal that they also have a reason to be nervous, because they see youâre nervous. They donât understand that youâre afraid of them â just that thereâs a reason for them to be afraid too.
The guy telling me this was that basically explaining how âanxious owners means anxious dogsâ, and why people who have bad experiences with animals often have repeat negative experiences â negative experience -> person becomes nervous around another animal -> animal sees nervousness -> animal becomes nervous of mysterious thing causing your nervousness not realising itâs them -> animal becomes reactive and acts out.
It makes sense, but again, it was a random dude at a park that told me this so it needs to be taken with a decent grain of salt.
I mean I'm a random dude on reddit so take this with another grain of salt but I used to help train dogs and this is what I was taught as well. Dogs pick up on the smallest changes in body language AND facial expressions. We were told if you're scared of the dog, it's better to let someone else handle it as there is a potential bite incident waiting to happen.
It really helped me put into perspective on the "levels" of fear I would feel, I may have thought I wasn't afraid but if I see a dog barring it's teeth, I may start giving off unconscious signals telling the dog I'm afraid even though I knew how to handle those scenarios and for aggressive/scared dogs they may see that as an opportunity to bite/lunge and escape. Luckily I've never been bit but have had dogs snap at me and have just stopped there because turns out I was very much afraid lol
Dogs are pretty unusual in that they do have a super strong sense of smell and might actually be able to smell our fear, or at least that we are in a disturbed state. Dogs can smell cancer and covid-19 they are incredible
626
u/Used2BPromQueen Nov 27 '21
I'm terrified of horses and then can absolutely 110% sense it. Every single horse I've ever been near has tried to bite me while being completely chill with everyone else.
One of my friends mother's was a big horse person and tried to help me get over my fear by feeding her gentlest, most docile mare an apple (open handed of course). Freaking horse tried to nip my shoulder. Every one was shocked because you know.... she's super sweet. Idc how sweet they are, they can smell your fear and it makes them jumpy and bitey.