Ravenzfire

You Might Be The Killer is a fun movie and probably fits in this list!

Yeah that's definitely an anxiety reaction. My dog is exactly the same way, he's a small guy but if he sees a bigger dog he goes nuts and wants to charge them. My dog has all the worst anxiety traits unfortunately lol. So one aspect can be a fear response. A strong fear based anxiety reaction can trigger a dog to go towards the trigger which is generally when you have a dog leash tugging to get at something. It can also be the result of a generic response. One thing we learned is that dogs breed down in the south have a inherent "working dog" anxiety bred into them for years because most dogs down there are used on farms and such as watch dogs. So dogs from that region have high alert anxiety and tend to dislike other dogs or animals they aren't socialized to because they were bred that way over years a d years.

So to answer your question , short of medication, the best ways to treat anxiety is with treats/food motivation. As you walk your dog you want to treat them any time they see a trigger. The goal is you want them to check in with you when they are triggered, so they feel like they are alerting you to the "thing" without having to charge and deal with it on their own. Another helpful thing is to go to a large open area where they can observe triggers from a safe distance and then of course treat them. This helps them get used to seeing things and getting used to just observing rather then acting. It's a lot of work and takes a lot of time but it definitely helps over time! And then also realizing that it won't ever be completely solved. There will always be a time your dog is surprised and reacts or sees that one dog and just goes crazy for some reason. So being able to spot those ahead of time and putting space between you and your dog and just advocating for them can go a long way. I hate the type of dog walker that has their dog off leash and calls out "oh he's friendly" as their dog rushes mine. That's great, but my dog isn't friendly and you have now just caused a problem for all of us. Drives me crazy! Anyway, hope that helps at least a little!

A lot of this is based on people mistaking dog's signals and behaviors as "happy". A dog wagging it's tale means it's engaged and ready to act, not specifically happy. So you can't take that as a sign that a dog is fine with you. Also if a dog is panting and it's not from heat, then that usually means they are stressed. So approaching a panting, tail wagging dog who then growls at you means that your presence is super stressing them out.

Having a very high anxiety dog and working with a behavioral vet has been super eye opening in understanding and recognizing what a dog's behavior actually means!

I think it's important to remember that when you are interacting online, especially with an unknown person, there is no relational component. You are effectively just words or text to them, there isn't a "person" behind what they are reading. It's very easy to be obstinate or argumentative with just words because you can't see the reaction or impact on the other person. So it's nearly impossible to change someone's mind in that format unless they are really being genuine and looking to have an exchange of ideas.

I've found the best way for myself to handle these types of situations is to realize nothing I say is going to impact them or change their mind. If I'm really wound up I might type a response out to get the frustration and energy out and then delete it. I usually feel better after that and can move on with my day but engaging further is just going to lead to further frustration because you can't actually reach the person.

I honestly think this might be pretty close to the mark. My company just announced RTO today but interestingly was pro WFH even before Covid with many of their staff hired as remote workers. They recently had to lay off a number of people and aren't projecting to be making their numbers this quarter. So I do wonder if this is an attempt to shed more staff without taking active action to lay off more people and the moral hit that comes with that.

Hah, this almost my exact same experience. Got into Digg only to watch it die shortly after. Went and checked out Reddit but didn't really like the look and feel of it at the time. It wasn't until the 2010s that I was bored at work and looking for something to read and stumbled on a Reddit thread that caught my attention. I was on Reddit after that until the API killed my 3rd party app and made the switch to Lemmy.