[yorkietalkjilly]

I just clicked on your thread from the Thundershirt thread. My Tibbe is a rescue who spent the 1st 9 mos. of his life apparently outside 99% crated and he has so many fears that we work on! I've had him almost 3 years now and he has overcome so many of his fears as we have worked through them.

He's not afraid of thunderstorms or other dogs or a room as your little dog but certain noises really scare him - one in particular is the sound of a large curtain rod in the den rattling a bit when I open or close the curtains! It sounds silly but his fear is as bad as those who fear thunderstorms or attacks.

He had conquered this fear almost completely with retraining until a recent incident when a small salamander from outside somehow got on the curtain rod while I was cleaning, I saw it, screamed loudly, jerked at the rod and it fell right on Tibbe, thankfully not injuring him physically. Much of the next 2 hours were involved in my own terror trying to find and corral the yucky thing as I am near phobic of them. All of this time Tibbe and I were terrified together and finally, in order to try to handle it myself B4 Animal Control could come and do it for me(I called them in panic), I got the awful thing under an upside down bowl on the floor and with cardboard slid under the bowl, and outside. Tibbe watched me go through all of this, shuddering and scared to death right after his ordeal of the falling, noisy rod and the poor little thing totally reverted to his fear of this sound again and worse - he was more terrified than ever.

The hardest part of once again trying to retrain him to not react fearfully is trying to get myself divorced from the scare and guilt I somehow carry for all this happening to him when I open or close the curtain and know he will be subject to the sound again. No matter how hard I try to detach, I guess I really can't always achieve that state as I'm so wanting him to succeed in not reacting fearfully. Some days I make it and we have a good session and others, Tibbe runs across the room. I can detach just fine in any other training situation, but this one, I'm not always successful, obviously, no matter how hard I try to prepare myself beforehand. And I do try!!!

I've wondered if maybe we could break through again faster if I get a trainer to work with Tibbe for an afternoon so he, apart from me, can see that this situation is now under control and can quit associating that curtain rod and its noise from that bad day with me and the agitation I must still carry some days. I honestly think Tibbe still remembers that day when I was not really his leader but scared and screaming and cringing trying to keep the lizard from running under the couch or something while trying to capture it without it touching me! Horrors!

Eventually, we would conquer this anyway, I am sure, but, like you, I do not want him to start to generalize his fear of this noise any more than he does, starting to associate it with similar sounds B4 we can make another breakthrough. So I think a person who has no history with Tibbe or me, that day and that curtain rod may be able to show Tibbe more quickly than I that it is just a plain old noisy curtain rod. I think once he sees that, we can take it from there.

Does that sound feasible to you? Before I do try the trainer, I thought I would ask someone who is having a similar situation with fear reaction.