Quote:
Originally Posted by 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. |
What an experience! I'm sure you were scared to death! It's a wonder we don't just ruin our dogs isn't it?
I'm going to answer you from experience not directly relating to Beemer and his experience, but more from Sadie. When She and I first started in agility, she was very afraid of the equipment. She didn't like anything where her feet didn't have solid footing under them. The teeter was her nemisis. We used wobble boards to get them used to a "moving surface". She would have none of it. I built her a bunch of agility equipment including a teeter. I laid the board down in the living room without the teeter and simply crumbled treats on it and left it. I let her explore at her own pace. Eventually I started training her to get on it. At first I clicked and treated for simply approaching it, later for putting a foot on it. You get the point. All of this was with the board flat on the ground. After she was comfortable climbing on the board, I put a small piece of threshold molding under the middle of it so that it would wobble ever so slightly. I went through the whole process again. Eventually, over time she got to where she would do a full agility teeter. If you go back and look at the video on my profile page, that was when she first was starting to "get" the teeter.
Is there any way that you can take the curtain and rod off the door temporarily? If you can, I think it might help both you and him with this. I would just put treats around it and try to get Tibbe to explore it. After he is comfortable around it, maybe with him a distance away, you could move the curtain ever so slightly so that it made the smallest of noises and treat him. Keep doing this till he doesn't mind the noise from the floor. I'm thinking it would be less scary when it was down on the floor where he could see it. Build up to as much noise as you can make with it before you put it back up. In fact, you might even lay it on a table or between two chairs and repeat before you move it all the way up. Let it become familiar instead of something scary. I'm no expert and this is just my thoughts - but it might be worth a try. If you do get a trainer, be sure to research them and make sure you get one that is positive and doesn't use any methods that you are opposed to. Good luck and let me know what happens.
Karen