Why Does My Dog Get Excited When I Sneeze? This May Surprise You

why does my dog get excited when I sneeze?
Simple – your dog is extremely sensitive to their owner and what happens to them, since they are the most important being in their life. You are, in a very real sense, their Alpha dog. Dogs have evolved over millennia to be social animals in tune with their pack, and their survival has depended on keeping close tabs on each other.Show more

When you sneeze, it’s an unexpected and exciting noise that your dog will want to examine closely. They want to make sure that you’re ok, and will come over to you and pay close attention to you.

In fact, you may be reinforcing this behavior yourself. Remember in the past when you’ve sneezed, and your dog got real excited and came over to check you out? What did you do in response?

Since it’s kind of cute and adorable when your dog gets all up in arms over a simple sneeze, I bet you patted them on their head, maybe even gave them a treat. This creates a positive reinforcement feedback loop that makes your dog keep doing the same thing the next time it happens.

What else can your dog do when you sneeze?
If a dog is extra sensitive to noise, a loud sneeze may scare them. A scared dog can bark, jump on or climb on you, or maybe run away and hide in a safe place.

If you feel this reaction is a problem, you can help your dog cope with your sneezing in a few different ways.

Whenever you feel a sneeze coming on, prepare a treat for your dog. As you sneeze, you give them the treat. This will teach them to associate your sneezing or coughing with getting a treat, which over time will help them not get scared or react negatively.
You can also sit with your dog when you sneeze, and show them that even though your face scrunches up and you make a strange noise it’s not dangerous. They’ll see that you’re just fine, it didn’t affect you in any way. Your dog should learn to cope with the noise over time.
You can try throwing a toy away from you when a sneeze is coming up. This will get your dog running off to fetch the toy, and hopefully distract them from the scary sneeze. This may be hard to coordinate, especially if you’re feeling under the weather and sneeze a lot. It can also be slightly confusing to your dog, since you’re playing with it but also feel sick.