Is My Dog Excited or Worried?

I can tell when Cody is thinking about sheep. She’ll follow me from room to room, stare relentlessly at me when I sit down, and chatters her teeth at me. But, when there’s thunder, she also follows me from room to room, and stares at me.

When excited, high-drive dogs often show outward signs such as panting, pacing, whining, or barking. These same signs are also seen in anxious dogs. It’s easy to misinterpret these signs when the triggers are more ambiguous than sheep and thunder, like cars, or cyclists.

The overlap exists because both arousal and anxiety activate the sympathetic nervous system. Elevated heart rate, respiration, and cortisol levels occur whether the dog is excited to chase a toy or distressed by a thunderstorm. Outwardly, the dog may look the same.

But the underlying motivation differs:

• Arousal is activation toward a goal. The dog is eager to engage, even if self-control is lacking.

• Anxiety is activation without a clear path forward. The dog feels unsafe or uncertain.

Misreading the state matters. A dog who is highly aroused may benefit from outlets that channel energy — controlled play, structured work, or training exercises that demand clarity. Or, it may just mean telling Cody at 2 am that she cannot go outside and kill the skunk she just caught a whiff of through the window!

A dog who is anxious requires safety, predictability, and reduction of pressure. Telling Cody to go away and shut up when she’s scared is unethical and if repeated, will degrade our relationship. It also does nothing to help Cody, and tells her that I do not have her back.

Studies support our confusion . Beerda et al. (1998, 1999) found that stress behaviors could be triggered both by positive arousal and by aversive stressors.

Similarly, physiological measures like cortisol alone could not distinguish “good stress” from “bad stress.” Context and behavior patterns are essential for interpretation.

For high-drive dogs, this distinction is especially important. Their natural arousal levels can mask genuine anxiety, and well-meaning pet parents may either over-stimulate when calm is needed or comfort when clarity is required.

I see this all the time when herding dogs are brought to me for lunging and barking at cars, or bikes, and the standard protocols for fear have failed. Because these dogs often aren’t experiencing fear in this context, rather, they are showing misplaced prey drive, or frustration. Providing proper outlets for prey drive, placing control within the game, and teaching our dogs how to handle frustration will help these dogs when other efforts failed.

Recognizing the difference between arousal and anxiety allows owners to meet the dog’s actual need, not just the surface behavior.

So, how can I tell if Cody is thinking about sheep or she heard thunder? Obviously, context matters. I know when my behavior (putting on socks instead of my sandals) triggers thoughts of sheep, and I generally know when there’s thunder outside.

But if Cody starts pacing, and staring daggers at me in the middle of the night, how do I know if I should tell her to go lay down or help her feel safe from some unknown threat? At 2 am all that matters to me is that she stops, but I have to care how she feels or I’m being unjust if I just tell her to knock it off.

First, I have to know my dog. This is super important, since I’m playing detective at 2 am. What might cause her to be super excited in the middle of the night? What might worry her? Having protocols in place to settle overarousal and anxiety are helpful as well. So instead of launching a full blown investigation, I can simply ask her to practice the anxiety protocol and see if it helps. If it doesn’t, then in her case, I know it’s arousal and I can invoke the arousal protocol.

It’s so easy as humans to see the outward behaviors and want them GONE! I get it! But we have to make sure that the emotion underlying the behavior is correctly understood and addressed, or we may win the battle and lose the war.