My Dog Is Scared Of Me Because I Hit Him – What Should I Do?

Sometimes your dog can be disobedient enough that you hit him, and you’d be surprised that your dog is now scared of you.

Without a doubt, dogs are one of the most friendly and emotional pets you can keep.

They can easily decipher your mood and demeanor towards them.

But in many instances, they can be naughty and annoying.

Why my dog is scared of me because I hit him

Their bad behavior might call for a hitting.

You may think this will put him in the right frame of behavior, but it may have an unwanted effect: fear.

The fear will make your dog hide from you when you are sighted.

This can make feeding, training, and grooming the dog a challenge.

Do These Things If Your Dog Is Scared Of You After You Hit Him

Your dog can become scared of you when you hit him.

When this happens, do the following to regain your dog’s trust.

Give You Dog Space

Like humans, dogs can do a lot when they have space.

This is a necessary step when you make your dog scared of you.

Let the dog stay on its own to overcome the shock and intimidation that can devastate the dog, especially when you have had a decent connection.

When there is a mutual connection earlier, hitting the dog will come as a strange surprise to him.

And this is usually the cause of your dog’s fear.

Therefore, you must exercise patience and let the dog rise from the horrible experience.

Become Intentional

The dog now fears you because you treated it differently than expected.

Therefore, you must be intentional in creating a positive connection again.

Rebuilding the connection will be easier if you have a good relationship earlier.

The usual pats and touches you do to the dog may not be welcomed.

Now you have to create that bond again intentionally.

You can use affirmations to connect with your dog again.

If your dog does something good, you can say “good boy” or other affirmative words.

You can also give it a memorable meal treat.

Ask your dog to perform a task and reward it with a treat.

Maybe a preferred snack or chicken meal.

Create A Routine

Since there is a high chance your dog may not want to approach you, it may be challenging to feed it.

So it would help if you kept a defined routine to help the dog.

Your dog will become calmer and more confident when it can follow through on usual activities.

Let there be a regular feeding time and pattern.

There should be a time for the dog to play and train with a defined place and time to sleep.

These specified activities will help the dog build trust again.

Condition Your Dog

It is natural for your dog to avoid you after you hit him.

To get his trust back, you can use classical conditioning, a psychology theory on learning by Ivan Pavlov.

This is simply an association between a stimulus and a response.

A good example is the dog salivating at the sight of food or on hearing the food bell.

In this case, you should reward the dog with a treat every time you pass by.

Walking by the dog, you should drop a piece of food or snack.

With time, the dog will no longer be scared when you approach it.

Instead, it will anticipate your coming and get excited.

Visit your Dog

A scared dog will warm up to you when it sees another dog doing it.

Once another dog is playing with you and happy around you, the scared one will begin to trust you again.

This may not be an instant process, but a new dog that trusts you can do the magic.

You can do this with another dog in the house if you have more than one dog.

You can also get a calm and playful dog to visit you, producing a social effect on the timid dog.

The trust and friendliness displayed by the visiting dog will help your dog trust you again.

Train Your Dog

The natural inclination in training dogs is to reinforce positive behaviors with treats.

But destructive behaviors, especially fearful dogs, are best ignored, not punished.

If you have applied positive reinforcement first that it becomes a habit for them, you might never have to hit your dog.

My dog is scared of me because I hit him

Another step to regaining your dog’s trust is intentionally ignoring destructive behaviors.

With time, your dog will eventually unlearn its bad behavior since no reward accompanies it.

As much as possible, give room for playing with your dog.

Play And Take A Walk

Breaking the barrier of fear to play with a timid dog can be challenging.

But you can become creative with it.

You can use a ball with a long rope to avoid getting too close to the dog.

Since he is scared of you, playing with you from a distance can help bridge the gap.

Then, once you successfully bridged the gap, you can take your dog on a walk.

Going out to see the world together can be an excellent way to reestablish the bond between you and your dog.

The comfort of seeing others and having fun on the way is highly commendable.

Now You Know Better

Even as humans, you can get scared of someone that hits you.

So hitting your dog can cause it to become timid and fearful.

But like I have said, you can do well to avoid hitting your dog by reinforcing good behaviors and ignoring bad ones.

Once the bad habits are not reinforced, they will be gone with time.

When you have a timid dog after hitting him, here are ways to regain trust: First, give it space to process the incident, get intentional about building rapport, and organize a socializing event with another dog visiting you.

Then focus on treats for your dog.

Everyone loves to be treated well.

In that case, your dog will warm up to you again when you become intentional about it.