How a Nightlight and an Airedale Made Me Feel Safe

When I was a kid, I was not a fan of the dark. To fall asleep, I needed two things: a nightlight and an Airedale on the bed. The nightlight took care of the shadows. The Airedale took care of everything else.

I didn't know it had a name back then. I just knew I slept better with a dog next to me, and I have never really outgrown that feeling. Turns out there's a name for it — and my whole pack runs on it.

Turns out the buddy system is real.

Social buffering — also called the emotional buddy system — is the calming effect a trusted companion has on a nervous dog. When I bring one of my dogs to the vet alone, I can visibly see their stress climb. Bring that same dog in next to a packmate it trusts, and their nerves settle almost immediately. Their stress hormones measurably drop.

What surprised me is how much the mutual bond matters. A friendly stranger helps a little, but a packmate helps more than anything else. For my boy Erwitt, his own crew settles him at the vet in a way that the nice dog in the next chair over never could.

And apparently it's not just a dog thing. It's a nervous-system thing — which explains why my seven-year-old self needed both a nightlight and an Airedale to fall asleep, and why my dogs still want each other when they're in a strange waiting room.

A buddy helps most when the dog is unsure.

This is the part that took me years of watching to really understand, and it's the part most people miss.

The less familiar or scarier a place feels, the more a friend helps them emotionally regulate. Flip it around and the effect nearly disappears. When a dog knows the routine cold, the nerves were never there to begin with — so there's nothing for a buddy to help with.

The more dogs, training, and plain years I have under my belt, the more I notice things like this. Every dog reads a situation a little differently, and every pack has its own dynamic. Mine prove it to me constantly.

Same pack, different needs.

Erwitt is my clearest case for the pack. On his own at the vet, he glues himself to my side and shakes. Bring the whole Airedale crew in and he walks around like he owns the place. Same dog, same waiting room, completely different animal depending on who came with him.

Prayerie and Daisy barely need buffering at all when it comes to grooming. They're show girls. The grooming table is part of their normal week, so they're relaxed with or without company. You could take Prayerie to her groomer in the middle of the night and she'd be perfectly fine. She knows the routine that well. Daisy is very much her mother's daughter on this one.

Fleetwood is the one who keeps it interesting. He's happy to go to daycare solo — confident, independent, in his element. Take that same dog to the vet, though, and suddenly he wants his family close. One dog, two places, two completely different needs.

Hudson just rolls with all of it. He doesn't need the pack and he doesn't get rattled by much. When everyone piled into the car for our last vet run, he came along purely as moral support. Some dogs are the ones who need buffering. Others, like Hudson, are the ones who provide it.

If you only have one dog.

Most people reading this probably have one dog, not a house full of them. But social buffering can still work for you. The difference is that you are their packmate. When your dog is unsure, your calm and familiar presence is doing exactly what my crew does for each other. Stay relaxed and matter-of-fact at the vet or anywhere new, because your dog reads your body language before it reads the room. A steady owner is the best buffer a single dog can have.

The buddy system at work.

Fifty years later I still sleep better with a dog on the bed. Fleetwood is at my feet every single night without fail. But on the nights when something is in the air — the kind of thing my dogs pick up on long before I do — the whole pack moves in close. Not all of them in the bed, but all of them nearby.

That is social buffering working in both directions, and I would not trade it for anything.

PS — Does your dog get braver when a friend tags along, or do you have one who is perfectly happy as a lone wolf?

-Kim Opdyke

💗