A Reddit user shared a touching video a few months ago of his two dogs comforting their scared dog sister.
In the video, Huxley, a small Shih Tzu, and Winnie, a white, deaf dog, are shown trying to care for their English/French Mastiff mix brother Rex.
Rex has a lot of behaviour problems linked to worry because he had a very bad childhood and was abused by several owners.
From mean owners to loving pets
It was found by researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland that dogs are more likely to show a wide range of anxiety-like behaviours, especially if they were mistreated as puppies.
By looking at the poll results, they learned that 72.5% of the 13,715 Finnish dogs that took part in the study showed signs of nervousness.
Rex’s dad says that Rex was abused by his former owners when he was a baby. He has had Rex four times, the last time when he was 1.5 years old.
The second people who owned him would hit him and shock him, so he is now scared of yelling, loud noises, brooms, clapping, and other things like that. His “aggressive behaviour” made them want to kill him.
Because of the bad experiences he had with his second owners, Rex started to show fear, anger, and a need to protect resources. This is why he didn’t fit in with the third family, even though they wanted to help.
He then went to live with his current owner, who has been trying to help him get better for the past 2.5 years.
There is a huge difference between him and the person he was before he joined the family.
There are still times when Rex acts nervous, but he can now hang out with his dog siblings and his human brothers.
“Anxious dogs usually don’t want to be around things they’re afraid of and will try to get away from them as quickly as they can,” the dog’s owner told Newsweek. “He was my first dog after my divorce, when I was by myself, so we helped each other a lot.”
