[yorkietalkjilly]

Be sure some of the strange, new things you encourage her to approach and sniff, nose- or paw-touch are noise-making things after a while of using more mundane things to build her confidence early on, graduating to a toaster that is set, a timer set to one minute before it "dings" and a jack-in-the-box, things like that. If you start out easy and slowly build up to more scary things and make a fun game of her going to inspect it and she gets a treat and big time praise when she goes, a happy, thrilled mommie dancing around and patting her all over, she will begin to trust herself and see nothing bad happens to her when strange things happen or go off or ring or ding. I tell Tibbe to "check it out!" when he sees something odd and he knows that game-playing tone of voice I use and he's immediately up for most of the things but on some, I have to encourage him and before too many days, he's all in.

Same with the loud music, use that as a reason for a party and celebration. Get a child's drum and gently touch it with your fingers and treat her. Keep that exercise up for a couple of days. Change to the drum stick and increase the noise over a few days, treating her with each couple of hits. Bring in magazines to flip pages and newspaer to crinkle - all for smiles and treats and praises from you when you make the noise and she stays close by and isn't acting fearful by shrinking away, lip-licking, yawning or shaking. Open and shake out trash bags - go through a whole box of the small, cheaper ones for treats and praises as she stays put, starting with just her approaching it and nose-touching it at first. Then, crinkle it up and if she stays put, a treat/smile/praise. Then, after a few days, gently open one and if she stays put, segue into shaking them open. Keep on adding to her noise repertoire and allowing her to face little bitty noise at first and gradually working up until she tolerates even the loud things. This is how you inure a dog to odd, scary things/situations and build its confidence and free it from fears over time.