How Your Attachment Style Influences Your Dog's Behavior, Attachment Style, and Ability to Handle Stress

Will the securely attached dogs please stand up?

Feb 27, 2024

Humans and dogs have co-evolved over thousands of years.

Dogs were domesticated to exist in human social groups and over time have evolved communication and social skills to help them survive in that environment — picking up cues and behavioral responses that some would argue are uniquely human.

As anyone who’s ever adopted an adult dog from a shelter can attest, the experiences a dog has during puppyhood will later influence the dog’s confidence and view of itself, how it shows up in the world, and how it interacts with and attaches to other dogs and people.

In humans, this concept is referred to as attachment theory, and a growing number of studies in recent years support a functionally analogous concept of canine attachment.

Understanding canine attachment theory is critical to understanding the human-dog bond, how your own attachment style affects your ability to bond with and care for your dog, and how to prevent and manage certain behavioral conditions.

If you’re not familiar with human attachment theory or how it’s studied, fear not! I’ll start with an overview of human attachment theory as this serves as the basis for our understanding of canine attachment.

Alrighty, let’s strap in!

Basics of human attachment theory

Human attachment theory is a developmental psychological theory that explains the way that humans bond and form relationships with their primary caregivers, and later, with other adults.

It reflects how a person relates to others, how they care for others, and thus, the attachment style of the children of the subsequent generation. The attachment bond is a particular affectionate bond that is comprised of four essential elements: contact maintenance, searching response (or protest at separation), secure base effect, and safe haven effect. I’ve outlined each of the four elements here:

The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) is a test that evaluates the degree to which each of the essential elements of the child-caregiver attachment bond manifest themselves during a standardized set of interactions.

Based on the infant’s responses in this test, their attachment to the mother is classified as either secure or insecure (insecure-avoidant or insecure-anxious).

In general:

Infants that are securely attached to their mothers show greater protest to involuntary separation and will seek to connect with the mother when reunited.
Babies who are avoidant are more indifferent to involuntary separation, and will ignore their mothers upon being reunited.
Anxiously attached infants will connect and get close to the mother upon being reunited, but don’t find the mother’s presence reassuring and do not calm down.

As they mature, the attachment style of the child manifests in their adult relationships.

Where securely attached persons are comfortable with vulnerable connection, trust, and intimacy with others, anxiously attached persons are uncomfortable with intimacy and have fear of abandonment — often manifesting through clingy and controlling behavior. Adults with avoidant attachment, as the name implies, avoid intimacy altogether.

The attachment style of the adult affects not only their ability to relate and attach to other adults, but also describes how they take care of others (their caregiving strategy) — which, in turn, affects the development of their child’s attachment style:

Securely attached adults are typically warm, sensitive, and responsive to their child’s signals and needs, promoting child development in the direction of secure attachment.

Avoidant adults/caregivers resist support-seeking and acknowledgement of distress, often promoting the development of insecure (anxious) attachment in the child.

Anxiously attached adults/caregivers show increased attention, but without necessary warmth and sensitivity. This kind of attention provides less comfort and emotional support to the child, which in turn promotes child development in the direction of insecure attachment.

The attachment bond has important implications for how the child interacts with their environment and handles environmental stressors. For example, securely attached children are typically more curious, self-reliant, and independent, and tend to handle stressful situations better than insecurely attached children do.

Insecure attachment, on the other hand, has been linked with a number of developmental and behavioral issues in children (separation anxiety and ADHD, just to name a few).

Dogs are the new children

A person’s attachment style also affects the way that they attach to their pets, and the dynamics of dog-human relationships have been studied extensively. Rehn et al. summarized it well in their 2017 study:

The relationship between dogs and owners has been suggested to resemble that between a child and its mother[…]. Dogs seem to elicit caregiving behavior in their owners […] and humans tend to interact with dogs and children in a similar way […].

When puppies are acquired by their owners (typically between 6-12 weeks of age), the owner/primary caregiver readily becomes the primary attachment figure for the dog, with the dog attaching to the human caregiver in a way similar to infants.

Indeed, when a modified version of the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) is performed on dogs, dogs show functionally analogous behaviors to human infants [1]. These behavioral responses are then grouped to categorize their attachment style in the same manner: secure, insecure-avoidant, or insecure-anxious.

As has been described in children, several studies have linked owners’ attachment style to the development of the dog’s attachment style, as well as certain canine behavioral conditions including separation anxiety and aggression.

Let’s explore further.

Caregiving strategy of owners with secure attachment style promotes secure attachment in dogs

Owners with a secure attachment style are warmly enthusiastic, sensitive, and responsive caregivers.

With their caregiving strategy, the psycho-emotional needs of the dog are more likely to be met. When attachment styles are tested, dogs of securely attached owners respond in ways similar to a securely attached child, exhibiting secure attachment behavioral responses.

When separated from their owner, securely attached dogs tend to exhibit greater protest at separation than avoidant dogs. With each subsequent bout of separation, their level of protest increases, similar to securely attached infants [1].

Owners who are warm and enthusiastic have dogs who seek the owner’s proximity and comfort during a challenging situation [2]. As the study progresses and the dog is presented with additional challenges, the proximity / contact-seeking behavior towards the owner also increases, suggesting the dog’s increased reliance on the owner as a secure base with increasing levels of stress [1].

Similar to securely attached children, securely attached dogs have a greater capacity to handle stressful situations.

When researchers compared SSP findings with physiological parameters of stress, they found significantly lower cortisol levels in dogs classified as securely attached compared to those classified as insecurely attached (reminder: cortisol is the body’s natural stress hormone) [3].

Caregiving strategy of owners with insecure attachment style promotes insecure attachment in dogs

Owners with an insecure attachment style can be further classified as avoidant or anxious, and each of these results in a different caregiving strategy.

Owners with an avoidant attachment style avoid intimate contact, closeness, and affection. When faced with stressful situations, they may be less responsive to the distressed dog. The message to the dog is that they cannot rely on the emotional availability, security, or consistency of the owner as a secure base or safe haven.

When faced with a stressor, studies have shown that dogs of avoidant owners don’t stand behind their owners for protection — actually standing further away from them [4].

Owners with an anxious attachment style show increased attention, but more often in a controlling manner — without warmth, thoughtfulness, or sensitivity.

The underlying message to the dog is thus the same — they cannot rely on the owner. Indeed, research has shown that dogs without the secure warmth from an owner are less likely to seek their closeness and comfort. Even dogs of “social supporters” — the anxiously-attached owner who is verbally reassuring, but without warmth or thoughtfulness — were less likely to seek proximity and comfort of the owner during a challenging situation [1, 2].

Though outwardly very different in their delivery, the caregiving strategy of both avoidant and anxious owners is similar in that it is less warm, sensitive, and responsive to the needs of the dog, which may promote the development of insecure attachment in the dog.

Avoidant dogs
When separated from their owner, avoidant dogs only exhibit protest to separation during the first round, showing ambivalence to separation in subsequent rounds of the study [1]. This is similar to avoidant infants who show little, if any, overt distress at separation.
When both the owner and a stranger are present, avoidant dogs do not preferentially seek the proximity/contact of one over the other, whereas securely attached dogs preferentially seek their owner. As the study progresses, avoidant dogs actually show a tendency to greet the owner less than the stranger during reunions [1].
Anxious dogs
When anxiously attached dogs are involuntarily separated from their owner, they do search for the owner and try to maintain contact with them upon their return. However, the presence and contact of the owner does not calm them down.
When physiologic parameters of stress were correlated with SSP responses, researchers found significantly higher levels of cortisol reactivity in dogs classified as insecurely attached, signifying the reduced capacity of insecurely attached dogs to handle stress [3].
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Owner’s insecure attachment style associated with common behavioral issues in dogs

One of the major practical implications of all of this is that dogs which do not have their psycho-emotional needs met may manifest this lack of safety and security through common behavioral issues.

Behavioral issues are often a major detriment to the human-animal bond, the depth of which may already be compromised by the owner’s insecure attachment style.

One study showed that avoidant owners were more likely to have dogs suffering from separation anxiety, which is one of the most common behavioral conditions in dogs [5].

Similarly, a 2020 study showed that avoidant owners were more likely to own dogs that were aggressive towards them. If a dog does not view their owner as a safe haven, they may feel less protected and be more fearful in a threatening situation. And as we know, fear is one of the main drivers of aggression in dogs [6].

Managing behavioral conditions in dogs can be costly, time-consuming and complex.

There is one aspect of treatment, however, which won’t cost you a thing — and that’s how you choose to show up and interact with your dog on a daily basis.

Dogs that are prone to behavioral issues such as separation anxiety or aggression need owners that provide reliable warmth, sensitivity and responsiveness. Your ability to (or to not) be consistently available to your dog in this way may very well be a reflection of your own attachment style. Even if your dog isn’t displaying obvious problematic behaviors, your insecure attachment style may affect your dog’s confidence, sense of security, and the way that they interact with the world.

So before you put your dog on Prozac or spend thousands on dog trainers (although these things are sometimes necessary too), take a step back and look at the sum of micro-interactions you have with your dog on any given day. Could you show up more thoughtfully, warmly, or intentionally?

Are you consistently providing the secure connection that your dog needs?

Sami the Vet

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