Technology and our dogs
You’ve done everything right. Your dog gets walks. They have a cozy bed, good food, plenty of love. And yet — they’re pacing, panting, startling at nothing, or just… off. Anxious in a way you can’t quite put your finger on.
Here’s a question worth asking: when did you get the smart doorbell?
Your Home Got Smarter. Your Dog Didn’t Get the Memo.
Dogs experience the world primarily through sound and smell. Their hearing range is roughly four times that of a human — they can detect frequencies we can’t, and at distances we’d never notice. Which means the smart home you’ve built for convenience? Your dog is living in it like a haunted house.
Think about what a modern home sounds like to a dog:
- A video doorbell that chimes, buzzes, or announces motion — even when no one is actually at the door
- A smart speaker (Alexa, Google Home, Siri) that randomly activates, speaks in a disembodied voice, or plays sounds without warning
- A robot vacuum that powers on autonomously and moves unpredictably through the space
- Notification sounds from phones and tablets — dozens of them, at random intervals, day and night
- Smart appliances that beep to signal they’re done, or chirp when a door is left open
To you, these are background noise. To your dog, each one is an unpredictable environmental event they have no control over and no way to predict.
And unpredictability is one of the biggest drivers of canine anxiety.
Why Unpredictability Is the Problem
Dogs are pattern creatures. They feel safest when the world makes sense — when they can anticipate what comes next. The walk happens after the leash comes out. Dinner follows the bowl being filled. These rhythms create a sense of safety and control.
Unpredictable sounds break that rhythm.
When a dog can’t predict when something will happen, how loud it will be, or what it means, their nervous system stays on alert. They can’t relax fully, because something might happen at any moment. Over time, a dog living in a constantly surprising environment can become what we call chronically stressed — never fully coming down from that heightened state, even when nothing is actively happening.
You might see this as:
- Restlessness or inability to settle
- Increased reactivity on walks (already wound up before they leave the house)
- Startling easily at small sounds
- Hypervigilance — always watching, always ready
- Disrupted sleep
- Increased barking, especially at the doorbell or speaker sounds
Sound familiar?
The Robot Vacuum Deserves Its Own Paragraph
Honestly, we could write an entire post about robot vacuums and dogs. (Watch this space.)
The combination of unpredictable movement, motor noise, and a thing that appears to act on its own is a trifecta of stress for many dogs. Some dogs become intensely focused on it — barking, chasing, trying to control it. Others avoid entire rooms where it lives. A few learn to ignore it entirely.
If your dog is in the first two camps, the vacuum running while you’re away is not a neutral event. It may be one of the most stressful parts of their day.
The Device You Probably Haven’t Thought About: Smart Plugs
Here’s one that tends to fly under the radar — smart plugs.
Those small adapters you use to make lamps, fans, and appliances “smart”? Many of them emit a high-frequency electrical noise produced by their internal switching power supplies. It sits in a range largely inaudible to humans, but well within a dog’s hearing range.
Unlike the doorbell or the vacuum, this isn’t a sound your dog can locate, anticipate, or make sense of. It’s just… there. A persistent, low-level hum coming from the walls and outlets. For a dog who is already sensitive or anxious, this kind of ambient frequency can be an additional layer of stress they have no way to escape — especially at night, when the house is otherwise quiet and the sound becomes more noticeable.
Research into the effects of these frequencies on dogs is still emerging, and we’ll be watching it closely. (The potential effects on humans are even less understood at this point — something worth keeping an eye on as the research develops.) What we do know is that dogs’ auditory sensitivity is extraordinary, and that chronic, inescapable sound — even at low levels — contributes to a stress load that accumulates over time.
What you can do:
- Take inventory of where your smart plugs live — particularly in rooms where your dog sleeps or rests
- If you notice your dog avoiding a specific area of the house for no obvious reason, a smart plug nearby may be worth investigating
- Consider unplugging smart plugs in your dog’s sleeping area overnight, or swapping them for standard plugs in those spaces
- When in doubt, create distance between your dog’s primary rest spots and clusters of smart devices
It’s a small change that costs nothing — and it may make a meaningful difference for a sensitive dog.
So What Can You Do?
The good news: you don’t have to choose between your smart home and your dog’s wellbeing. A few intentional adjustments go a long way.
1. Audit your sound environment Spend one day noticing every unexpected sound in your home. Doorbells, chimes, alerts, speakers activating, appliances beeping. You may be surprised how many there are. That’s your dog’s reality, every day.
2. Reduce randomness where you can
- Set your robot vacuum to run on a schedule while you’re home so your dog isn’t alone with it — and run it at the same time each day so it becomes predictable
- Turn off motion alerts on your video doorbell, or reduce the chime volume
- Set your smart speaker’s wake-word sensitivity lower, or put it in a room your dog doesn’t frequent
- Silence non-essential phone notifications during your dog’s rest windows
3. Create a retreat space Give your dog a spot in the house that is genuinely quiet — away from the main hub of smart devices. A bedroom, a crate with a cover, a corner with a white noise machine. Somewhere they can go and genuinely decompress. A dog who has a reliable retreat is a dog who can self-regulate.
4. Watch their body language You don’t need to wait for an obvious reaction to know your dog is stressed. Yawning, lip licking, looking away, a low tail, tension in the body — these are calming signals, your dog’s way of communicating that something isn’t sitting right. If you’re seeing these in your own home, your home environment is worth looking at.
5. Build a decompression routine After any stressful event (the vacuum ran, a delivery person triggered the doorbell six times), give your dog a structured way to come back down. A slow sniff walk. A scatter feed in the backyard. A calm chew. Something that engages their nose and lets their nervous system reset.
The Bigger Picture
We spend a lot of time looking outside the home for reasons our dogs struggle — the dog park, the neighbourhood walk, the training class. And those things matter. But the home environment is where your dog spends the majority of their time, and if that environment is chronically unpredictable, it’s working against everything else you’re doing.
The most impactful thing you can do for an anxious dog is often the simplest: make their world more predictable.
You don’t have to get rid of Alexa. Just maybe introduce her.
Noticing stress signals in your dog and not sure where to start? We can help. Reach out at coaching@dawgtired.ca or visit dawgtired.ca to learn more about our coaching programs.
Tags: dog anxiety, canine stress, smart home, dog behaviour, Calgary dogs, technology and dogs, calming signals, dog tips Category: Dawg Blog Featured image: Use the Alexa/dog IG graphic