Category: Animal House
I have a little house dog, who gets fritened whenever he hers a loud bang. As I'm writing this now, he's under my computer table at my feet. He got scared, cause there was a really loud bang outside, and he came in shaking and wining. So, what I guess I'm wondering is, does this happen to your dog to?
Many dogs are scared of loud noises, not just small ones. I grew up having a dog, and he often got scared during thunderstorms, or sometimes when the TV was up really loud during an action movie, and there were gunshots or an explosion.
Yes my partner's 9 yr old Bearded Collie is scared stiff of fireworks thunder and back firing cars.
It sounds cruel but you must ignore the fear, as you will increase the it and your dog will become convinced that harmless things are terrifying. Distract him with verbal reassurance but don't react to the fear and behave as if nothing is wrong.
I used to have an older boxer who was extremely large, strong and fearless, unless fireworks went off.
That sucker ran away from home every fourth of July. You could count on it.
Bob
It's funny, cause his brother didn't react the way that my dog did when the big bang happened. I should just say, that they are blood brothers, from the same parents, and the same litter. They aren't twins, cause one has a black head, and the other, a brown one.
2 litter mates can vary enormously in temperament and confidence. Bob I don't blame him, if we don't watch Dougal, he will bolt whether the noise is truly frightening, or mildly annoying.
I have a little dog, a chihuahua pom mix. He's six. He get very scared of loud bangs such as fireworks. Luckily, if we're outside and there's a bang like that he runs, but he runs right to me for protection. lol. A month or so ago, He was on my bed shaking because of some loud bangs which I thought were fireworks. It turned out to be gun shots across the street. A couple of guys raped and shot a woman, and also shot her dog.
Aww, some people are cruel. I feel so sorry for both the woman and the dog.
Try training your dog to react more calmly to loud noises. Have someone make a loud noise in the next room and give your dog a treat, a very small food reward just as the sound is happening. Do this a few times a day, bringing the sound closer and closer. Also, let your dog see what makes a sound and see how they react. If they don't see a frying pan crashing to the floor, and they wig out then that's normal. But if they clearly see it falling off of the counter and still get very afraid of the noise, then it's a psychological problem that you can't really do anything about. Also, don't pick the dog up and say "Oh, Poor puppy. It's ok. Yeah, It's all right." If you do that then you are just re-enforcing to the dog that something was indeed wrong, and that their fear reaction was the correct one for the situation. Goblin is absolutely right. Try to ignore the fear response and it should go away, or at least get better.