Yes, there is an inherent difference between comfort and coddling. As per the dictionary terms:
Coddling:
1.
to treat tenderly; nurse or tend indulgently; pamper:
to coddle children when they're sick.
Comfort:
1.
to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to:
They tried to comfort her after her loss.
2.
to make physically comfortable.
6.
a person or thing that gives consolation
I do not "coddle" my dogs in the sense that I pamper them. I do, however, comfort them if the need for comfort arises. If Gaci is ever put in the position that she gets anxious, scared, and fearful, I will remove her from the situation, talk quietly and slowly to her (in most aroused dogs high-pitched or quick tones result in more arousal), and perhaps perform some TTouch with her, usually with her in my lap or beside me (it's such a wonderful method to work with fearful dogs). She will almost immediately calm down, you can feel her body relax under your hands. I do things that physiologically and emotionally comfort her. So I suppose in your terms, yes, that's very much comforting her, and to some they will perceive it I'm sure as coddling, if they do not differentiate between the two.
One thing I think we all have to keep in mind, is that we're dealing with a highly social species who is living with another highly social species and very non-specific ways. Dogs interact with us like dogs, and we interact with dogs like people. We can't interact with dogs like dogs, just like dogs cannot interact with us like people. In saying that, I do think there is a fundamental difference between how dogs may reassure other dogs, and how humans reassure other dogs, and our dogs take note of that.
In dog-dog interactions, such similar stimuli are grooming sessions, sleeping/cuddling sessions, and mother-pup interactions. These are also all things that release feel-good chemicals in the dogs. In the wild (oh my, talking about wild!), if you wish to reference this, for those wolf-dog believers, dogs have very different ways of comforting others. In the den it starts with the mother coming to the crying pup's side, or the siblings coming to that pup's side and laying with it (usually in a large huddle). As the pups grow it develops into a body language, with a very complex subset of signals, postures, eye movements, and other motions that allow one dog to say "It's okay, I've got it" or "Come now, there's nothing to fear" to another dog/wolf. When dogs communicate these things with other dogs, it's very easy for them to "talk" to each other, if you will, about their intentions. No, adult dogs do not tend to cuddle (although more and more people are beginning to believe otherwise as well) other dogs to comfort them, but they have very species-specific ways of sending the exact same message - with a glance, with a head gesture, with a body block, just by one leading the way to encourage the other to follow - these are all their way of comforting and reassuring the other that they are out of danger, that there is no need to fear.
And then perhaps we can delve into more evolutionary discussion, of perhaps in the wild, people are right in that there does not appear to be a lot of comforting/cuddling going on. But is that because dogs cannot learn to do such things and respond in such ways? Or, perhaps, is it because in the wild, it does not fit the optimality of the species? Perhaps, is it not something that animals in the wild, in their niche, need to do to survive? Perhaps, would doing these behaviours in the wild result in higher costs - developmental costs, energetic costs, and survival costs? Animals who learn more have larger brains. Animals who learn different things have differentially sized parts of the brain. The same species, occupying two different niches, who had learned different adaptations for survival, have differently organized brains, and they use their brains differently. You can take a species from the wild, raise it in a laboratory, and raise it in a way that is quite contrary to their way of life in a niche, those animals will learn to do things that sometimes their wild counterparts never did. Perhaps it is not that wolves "can't" do it, or that it's not a "wolf" thing, or that wolves don't have those emotions, but rather in the wild there are other behaviours that better ensure survival, and that for those wolves that do perform comforting techniques, it might be more costly than it is beneficial? And maybe, perhaps, just maybe, with the domestic dog, their needs have changed? They don't live in the same niche, deal with the same perils, don't have to concern themselves with the same ways of living, so that performing such behaviours might have a more appropriate function in terms a dog's survival in a human-home? Ethology is a fascinating science, studying form and function and the differences between them as evolution proceeds, and how adaptive animals are to their environment at hand. But that's getting a bit off-topic, although there are always things to consider.
In our normal lives, on a normal day, when no fear is involved, we cuddle our dogs. We lay with them on the couch, or we massage, or we pet, and we give treats, and we talk in a friendly manner to them. Dogs are VERY attuned to these things I assure you. They release endorphins, and serotonin, and all of those other 'feel-good' brain chemicals like occurs in any other social species. Dogs learn from that. They learn that these things feel good, and they most often very visibly relax in the presence of these stimuli. Just as they visibly rev up when we talk excitedly, or jump around, or roughhouse with them. They learn contextually just as we do. In saying that, dogs will often seek out the stimuli that cause them to feel good, such as the massage or the quiet, gentle vocalizations we make.
Of course how we act with them is not usually how dogs interact with them. But by gosh, among all other ways we co-exist, and how long we've been co-existing with them, I think dogs realize that too. And I also think that, by living with us day in and day out, they learn what ways in which interacting with us meets the needs that they have, and the needs that they have with people can sometimes be very much different than the needs they have with other dogs. And dogs also know that we interact with them in the way that we, as humans, can interact with them. Dogs learn that "dogs do it this way, humans do it that way", they learn just as much from US as we do from them. If they didn't, we wouldn't be as successful as we are in living together as a species.
If Gaci gets her toes stepped on by somebody, she will come to me immediately. She is quite a sensitive girl, and she immediately goes to that person whom she trusts (her dogparent). I'll bend down, talk to her, give her a kiss, make sure she's alright, and then tell her she's fine. It's only about 30 seconds or so, but it is my way of reassuring her that all is fine, there is nothing to fear, and that she can go on her way again. And she does just that, and is then fine. If she came to me, and I ignored her and just walked away, is that "being a good leader", as the mantras tell us is so, or is that perhaps not fulfilling a need that she as a dog, in our dog-human relationship, has at that moment? To make her feel safe, to make her feel comfortable, to reassure her? I see it as she had a need that needed to be fulfilled at that time, so I fulfilled it and the problem was solved. If she hears a strange sound she's never heard before, and if it frightens her (not many things do, but there have been a couple of sounds over the last 3 years that startled her), she will come to me immediately. I'll bend down, talk to her softly but happily, and if I can we go to investigate the sound together. And then she is fine. You would think, would you not, that if it was "coddling" her, she would repeat it everytime she heard the noise, because after all it would have to be reinforcing, right? Or that she would, as "they" call it, begin "faking fear" and keep doing what got her attention. But she doesn't do any of these things. Once I show her, in my very-human ways, that all is well, she goes on her way and is fine. Or is it not possible, perhaps, that she came to be because she was unsure, and I fulfilled her need of being reassured at that moment?
I'm not trying to be anthropomorphic here, I'm really not. Of course though we can only discuss things in a human sense, because we are human, and that's how we discuss things. Terms like reassurance, comfort - they are all human constructs. But is that really considered anthropocentric? Or is it simply acknowledging that humans are not alone in the world of emotions, and that being mammals as well, not to mention a very social species, have similar emotions and can have them helped in very similar ways? After all, if we've all evolved somewhere along the timeline, we contain the same neurochemicals, the same brain structures, is it too much to believe that other species can benefit from comfort and reassurance as well? And that, just maybe, even though we are NOT dogs, and we will never will be, that dogs can't learn human intentions (just as we learn dog intentions) and share certain emotions with us?
But in the end, the question was "Do I do this?". I have said unequivocally "Yes" (but perhaps not in the way people perceive it). And then the question is "What are the results", and the answer is unequivocally "Great ones". I have had many dogs, for many years, and have had many experiences in dealing with dogs over my lifetime thus far. In all of those experiences, I can honestly say that not once have I found that comforting a truly terrified animal ever resulted in "reinforcing the fear". Not even close. At the best, I have found that it helped immensely. At the worst it did nothing, but it certainly has never reinforced the fear that they had. And I've worked with phobic dogs (thunder phobia, grooming phobia, car phobia), people-fearful dogs, other dog-fearful dogs, a dog with phantom tail, etc. Nor have I found that using comfort or reassurance has negatively impacted dogs, I have only noticed that it worked, and that all of the dogs that I have interacted with have benefitted from it, and that our relationships remained strong throughout their lives.
Of course this delves into the issue of what ARE the correct ways to deal with fears and other behaviour problems in dogs (and other non-human species), in ways that dogs will understand? Things like TTouch, and using a particular pitch/tone/level of your voice, the speed with which you talk, teaching cues like "Settle" that illicit classically conditioned responses that are incompatible with the fear, etc, removing a dog from that fear-illiciting stimulus. At what point does the limbic fear and emotion become an operant, reinforcable behaviour (the point at which you can reinforce a particular behaviour), where you can reinforce unwanted behaviours? There is a line there, especially when working with counterconditioning and desensitization behaviour mod. These are the questions that interest me, because I personally am past the old mantra of "don't reinforce a dog's fears by cuddling". I want to learn more about how we can best achieve those results, and how we can best help our dogs deal with these situations and yes, how to appropriately use reassurance and comfort (not coddling.....coddling doesn't even do fellow humans much good, why would it do our dogs good?) to enhance the lives of our dogs.
Kim MacMillan