Too scared to leave the house.
Abbie’s case is so severe. Even small incidental bangs or heavy rain send her ears back and tail between her legs. She tries to dig through the floor, pants and trembles violently.
In order to help her, we looked at four main areas.
The vet
Support from the vet on two fronts. First, checking for undiagnosed pain – Abbie suffers from arthritis. It’s a proven fact that noise sensitivity is often related to pain.
Secondly, medical help with her fearfulness while we get to work.
Management
In addition to keeping her in during target practice times, the lady can install a doorbell. Currently people have to knock on the door which scares Abbie. She can also install an outside letterbox.
Preparing the bolthole
She runs upstairs to the corner of the lady’s bedroom where there is a dog bed. The lady has bought a soft crate. Maybe she can put that beside the bed, open of course. It may muffle some of the sound if Abbie chooses to use it.
This bolthole can have soft music – or some suggest Reggae or even taco drums like we might use for fireworks.
It can also have a Pet Remedy plugin.
Adding to this, the lady can try a Thundershirt. It doesn’t work with all dogs but is very effective with some. It’s a good idea to put it on her when she is relaxed and happy. This way all associations with it will be positive before using it for real. Otherwise, it might be ‘contaminated’ with fear.
Abbie’s other safe place is the car. Consequently the lady takes her everywhere with her and leaves her in the car.
Reducing Abbie’s fear. Desensitisation and counter-conditioning
The most effective way to do this is unfortunately impossible. This would start with no bangs at all and work from there.
From time to time there will be unavoidable bangs to take Abbie off-guard. The army shooting is still very audible inside the house. This is where the bolthole comes in.
The principal behind helping Abbie is to start at a level that Abbie can cope with. This will be soft taps generated by the lady herself. The sound will be accompanied by a short “Yes” and food.
Bit by bit the lady can add louder and different sounds. It’s important to constantly keep below Abbie’s anxiety threshold. Some days this will be higher than on other days.
She can source bangs from YouTube and control the volume.
All the incidental bangs and sounds she can immediately pair with Yes and food. She may also like to bounce Abbie’s ball which she loves, to coincide with a bang. This will mean the lady wearing a bum bag all the time containing food and a ball.
It will be a long slow job. I personally believe some expert medication during the process would help.
About 4 months later: “I wanted to touch base with you to let you know how much Abbie and I have benefitted from your training advice….
About 8 months later: Your combination of insight, experience and the ability to communicate to anxious dog owners leaves me feeling that getting in touch with you to help with my complicated little Abbie was the best move I ever made as a dog owner
Thank you for your good work…and I always mention your name if anyone asks about difficulties with their dog. I hope they get in touch with you”.
