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Originally Posted by docmartin  Re-reading your post again, I've highlighted what may be very real problem viz. I'm a bit of a gadget man you see. in my room is a very sophisticated surround sound system, wireless transmitters, iPads, laptops, cooling fans, and Air conditioning! Irina's room (by her request) has none of the above. I'd noticed sometimes how Crystal jumps a bit when something like a sound effect on the TV, comes out of one particular speaker, or the air-con goes into a 'coil dry' routine, which means 30 secs of buzzing. More important my room has a balcony and its the heart of the summer season here just now. Most annoyingly we get unbelievably loud Harley Davidsons, throbbing along the sea front. Although we're the Penthouse, 4 storeys up, the edifice of the building acts like the walls of a canyon and its a fact that we can hear a whisper on the pavement, so a wretched great motor bike may be too much for her, as increasingly it is for me. I have the balcony barriered with some trellis to prevent her maybe falling off, by squeezing though the railings. Whilst she's definitely inquisitive, she's still markedly timorous to the sounds. Irina's room is in the rear, where it's much quieter. I have treble glazed doors, so I can shut the noise out completely, but sometimes forget in the summer to lock out the invasive tourist world! Tonight she's been hyper active, chasing around like a tornado, playing with me, but leaving the room when Irina exits. |
It could be Crystal is like Tibbe, hypersensitive to certain sounds. I've read that some dogs just produce more adrenaline and that promotes more fear and aggression in them. My TV system has 18 speakers, two each that handle the various low, mid and high tones of TV/DVD sound effects plus two larger side speakers and a subwoofer and when there is something odd or different, he used to disappear and stay in the bedroom for 2 or more hours - and I'm all he's got - yet his fear was such he had to leave me to get to a safe, quieter spot where he felt in control. Eventually, he would come back in and seem better. I began to find sound effect samples online such as the circle saw, the doorbell, space-age related sounds and those odd sounds you get in New Age music and play short 18 second segments of those during the day when Tibbe was happy and playing and barking out the window at the cat or squirrels.
Recently he had a return of his panic attacks and I also bought him a Thundershirt which pretty well calms him right down and he usually goes to sleep on the couch pillow right beside me when wearing it. It got much worse when he had a bad GI upset in April of this year and he had full blown panic attacks with hard panting, wall-eyes, shaking, his head turning on a swivel looking all about and eventually dashing for the bedroom. You could tell his system did a full-blown adrenalin dump and he was petrified. I had double-paned windows and heavy drapes installed down in the bedroom a few years back when a neighbor's dog was barking a great deal so it is unusually quiet in that room and pretty much all you can hear is the hiss of the air conditioner. I also often use white noise in the bedroom nights and he really seems to like that if turned on during his attacks of fear. Anyway, once I got the Thundershirt, his GI problems ended, he's stopped having those recurrent panic attacks that reminded me of his early panic attacks when I first got him.
He's not afraid of Thunder or the normal things - just oddball noises. He spent 9 mos. of his life before I got him in a cage outside in a covered shed exposed to the elements trapped so I imagine a lot of circle saws and things like that in his more rural area terrified him and he couldn't escape or turn to anyone for help. He was alone and helpless. He was kennel-crazy, unsocialized and panicky and scared of most everything when I first got him - even a squeaky door or the refrigerator running, the phone/doorbell ringing, TV, radios, etc. and he'd run out of the den down the hall to the quiet bedroom when he heard those. Eventually he did desensitize and accommodate to all of those except the odd sounds - particularly anything you would hear in space-age genre movies - those high-pitched, warbly sounds of what Hollywood used to think flying scaucers made and things like that. Even adds for those shows would send him running. But we conquered all of that only to have it return this April. Anyway, once he got well of his GI troubles in May, he's back to being himself and even during the Fourth of July fireworks neighbors set off, he just barked but wasn't scared. We didn't even need the Thundershirt.
I hope your little girl's isolation issues are noise-related as she can be slowly desensitized to those using sound effects from time to time in short burst with concurrent use of distraction of playing really fun games and tossing her balls or sounding her squeaky toys while you play the short burst of a soundtrack. Also toss her a treat. Having Tibbe perform all of his Obedience work during these desensitization sessions really helps him distract from them too. If he's busy doing his commands, he's almost oblivious to sounds now that used to send him running. I wish I'd had the Thundershirt to use on him back when I first got him - it might have helped him faster.
But little by little we worked through his fears and he began to stay in the den with me when he heard a weird noise from the TV sound system and I'd always get up and get him a treat to help associate the sound with something good to him and reward his bravery, with a big smile on my lips and building him up with positive words like "soldier", "hero", "big guy", "general", "winner" - all words that I felt upbeat when saying to him and just uttering those words put me - and him - in a better place mentally. Just that mindset one gets when thinking of a soldier or hero, I believe, can translate to the dog and help him psychologically feel a bit more powerful. Tibbe LOVED all of those words being used to describe him and watching me pump myself up even as I said them seemed to pump him up too. And then the treat to mark all of that bravery with food from me further reinforced how good staying in the den was when he heard a scary noise and associating it with food and being nurtured by me.
It took a long time and guess what, if I kept the TV off or on mute, he was a different dog, though still a bit apprehensive because he knew in the den those sounds could assail him anytime, until he was sufficiently rehabbed from these fears. Now he's 99% cured of all those noise-related fears and only occasionally will one get to him and send him running. Only his recent illness brought it all back for a time until he was well. It's been a long haul but we're about as rehabbed as he's probably every going to be.
Thundershirt also has a little cap now that they sell that covers the head and the eyes with mesh for those dogs that are just taking in way too much sound and visual stimulation for them to handle at times. The covering helps the dog feel a bit isolated behind the mesh, which helps keep out too much visual stimuli and all he's really got to deal with is the sound. The cap/hood just fits over the head and part of the face and should Tibbe ever revert to his old panic, I might get one of those to help cut down on his extra stimuli, turn on the white noise machine here in the den and put his Thundershirt on and see how he fares.
Anyway, these are all just some things we dealt with and it took months to get where we are but it was worth it in the end. He was also fearful of closing doors, the broom, vacuum and shaking out a plastic garage bag and things like that. He's now a well-trained, well-behaved, fun and loving companion, very calm now and happy in his own skin. I don't know if some or even any of this will apply to your baby but it just might. You never know until you hear about others trials and then experiment and try to see if it could in some way work for Crystal. Being younger, she could be far less difficult to rehab of this problem if that's what she has.