Luna's anxiety

D

DaveFisher

Forums Regular
Luna is our 1 year old little girl who is full of energy and lots of fun. She still gets the "zoomies" fairly often and we are currently doing agility training. The problem is certain sounds around the house set her off and she gets almost out of control, barking and jumping. We have an espresso machine and we have to take her outside if we want to use if because she becomes so aggressive, jumping up trying to get to the counter. Another odd trigger for her is when I prepare to shower; if we don't keep her away she will bark incessantly and aggressively and try to bite the shower door . Once I am inside the shower she is quiet. Another trigger is piano music, either from our piano or on t.v. We literally cannot use our piano because of the incessant barking even when she is in a room away from the piano itself. We have tried everything we know from having Shelties for almost 40 years and finally agreed with the vet to put her on what is called doggie prozak. This has made her a little calmer but does not stop the sudden triggers as described above.
Any ideas on how to calm her or prevent these "trigers" from causing her to become so agitated? We are out of ideas.
Thank you for any and all ideas.
 
I'd love to tell you there's a magic secret for curing this, but it's a long process requiring a great deal of persistence and patience from what I know. My dogs all have triggers for various things from the vacuum to the kettle to the phone and this list goes on for pages, but with five it's nearly impossible to accomplish de-triggering one by one so I haven't had many success stories.

However, friends of mine who have used a trainer to help (something I'd highly recommend to you) have been successful first teaching the dog to go to it's "spot" in the house....usually a bed or pad placed in the room. First you train laying down on the pad at a time when the trigger behavior is not involved, then "stay" (using high value treats) and then eventually, when you're going to do something that's a trigger, you send the dog to it's spot, treating when she successfully stays and ignores the trigger. This has been really successful for people I know but they have all used a trainer to help them with the process.

If you opt to take that route, make sure the trainer you choose uses positive reinforcement and not the alpha teaching method of dominating the dog -- that rarely works with the Sheltie personality. Shelties want to please their humans, so using positive methods works best. Good luck and please keep us posted on how it goes! Heaven knows I'd love to learn a better way for mine!
 
The only thing I can think of is diversion. Find something she likes then when you hit the espresso machine bring out the good thing. If the distraction works give it to her. If that works gradually extend. That part is critical or she might play you. If you can get it to you get expresso and she gets a treat that is a success. All of mine the diversion would have been food except Spitfire. He is unbribable and evil. Our house has a saying Spitfire does as Spitfire does. He is mellowing some at 14.
 
DaveFisher said:
Luna is our 1 year old little girl who is full of energy and lots of fun. She still gets the "zoomies" fairly often and we are currently doing agility training. The problem is certain sounds around the house set her off and she gets almost out of control, barking and jumping. We have an espresso machine and we have to take her outside if we want to use if because she becomes so aggressive, jumping up trying to get to the counter. Another odd trigger for her is when I prepare to shower; if we don't keep her away she will bark incessantly and aggressively and try to bite the shower door . Once I am inside the shower she is quiet. Another trigger is piano music, either from our piano or on t.v. We literally cannot use our piano because of the incessant barking even when she is in a room away from the piano itself. We have tried everything we know from having Shelties for almost 40 years and finally agreed with the vet to put her on what is called doggie prozak. This has made her a little calmer but does not stop the sudden triggers as described above.
Any ideas on how to calm her or prevent these "trigers" from causing her to become so agitated? We are out of ideas.
Thank you for any and all ideas.
Click to expand...
Our first sheltie that we had inherited was very excitable and barked at lots of things. Maybe not quite as much as Luna. I think sometimes it takes a good dog trainer (and not all are really good) to offer you solutions and I am not a dog trainer. She seems to have some insecurity issues and maybe just was born wired that way? Agility is great, obedience training is also good because both help establish a close relationship between you and your pup. Our current crew do have some things that drive them crazy and we have been able to reduce their barking alot with the use of a ultrasonic dog bark deterrent device. I got mine from Amazon, it is rechargeable and it is never used as punishment but rather an attention getter. When I have their attention I say "NO BARK" and they know the word no and it really does help. I just touch the button, I do not hold it down and as I said it is more a look at me thing. I also carry it on dog walks to stop aggressive barking of neighbor dogs as we pass if it looks like there may be an escalation. Again others may have better advice and this device might excite Luna more than stop her?? Again it is an attention device not a punishment device..and a quick touch of the button is all that is required. We also have established a routine that when they start going ballistic and it seems over top we put them in our mud room and shut the door. They know the routine and if we say Mud Room they know where they are going and they obey. Shelties are barkers and we have to deal with that and let them express themselves but it is important that they learn when enuf is enuf. Ours are 4 yrs now and have always been pretty good (there are still monsters like the broom monster, vacuum monster, food blender monster etc) that must be dealt with and I do not pull out the UDD but on occasion. Have you tried things like someone holding her while the piano is played (a few notes) and reward her is she does not bark even for a moment pause "Good no bark".. Again you want to reward good behavior not punish bad so you are a better judge of that line than me. I hope someone has some better ideas. One way or another it will take time to tame her excitement- Very best of luck..
 
I think one answer is to not stop doing whatever it is you're doing to set them off. Let it persist until they're inured to it. This has worked with Mr. Pip, who had some definite problems with the printer, the ceiling fan, the vacuum cleaner, and sounds coming from the computer. I just had to put up with his dramatics until at last he's so accustomed to hearing those noises that they hardly trigger a reaction. It takes patience, and a willingness to put up with some dramatics, but it's the most effective method I can think of.

Here he is with the printer at 4.5 months:

And the same printer today (8 months)
 
Ann said:
I'd love to tell you there's a magic secret for curing this, but it's a long process requiring a great deal of persistence and patience from what I know. My dogs all have triggers for various things from the vacuum to the kettle to the phone and this list goes on for pages, but with five it's nearly impossible to accomplish de-triggering one by one so I haven't had many success stories.

However, friends of mine who have used a trainer to help (something I'd highly recommend to you) have been successful first teaching the dog to go to it's "spot" in the house....usually a bed or pad placed in the room. First you train laying down on the pad at a time when the trigger behavior is not involved, then "stay" (using high value treats) and then eventually, when you're going to do something that's a trigger, you send the dog to it's spot, treating when she successfully stays and ignores the trigger. This has been really successful for people I know but they have all used a trainer to help them with the process.

If you opt to take that route, make sure the trainer you choose uses positive reinforcement and not the alpha teaching method of dominating the dog -- that rarely works with the Sheltie personality. Shelties want to please their humans, so using positive methods works best. Good luck and please keep us posted on how it goes! Heaven knows I'd love to learn a better way for mine!
Click to expand...
Thank you for your response. The technique you describe makes sense. We have been going to Zoom Room, a chain of dog training locations and we completed obedience and now are doing agility. They offer one-on-one sessions in their location, not in our home, but we will try that next. I saw a video from a trainer who recommended the going to their spot technique but I wasn't clear on how to start this. Your idea of laying down on the pad at first makes a lot of sense. I know negative reinforcement does not work well with Shelties. I have tried raising my voice and being more stern but I think she then thinks she should get louder, too, so I try not to do that.
 
SheepOfBlue said:
The only thing I can think of is diversion. Find something she likes then when you hit the espresso machine bring out the good thing. If the distraction works give it to her. If that works gradually extend. That part is critical or she might play you. If you can get it to you get expresso and she gets a treat that is a success. All of mine the diversion would have been food except Spitfire. He is unbribable and evil. Our house has a saying Spitfire does as Spitfire does. He is mellowing some at 14.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply. We have tried using a diversion but we have been automatically bringing out the treat before turning on the espresso machine; I think we need to maybe start the machine first then give the treat, as you say. Sometimes she won't take the treat she is so focused on the noise that she knows is about to start. (a little too smart for her own good!) nOur previous Shelties barked at the vacuum cleaner and blender so we expected that but Luna seems to have more triggers than our previous ones.
 
woof said:
Our first sheltie that we had inherited was very excitable and barked at lots of things. Maybe not quite as much as Luna. I think sometimes it takes a good dog trainer (and not all are really good) to offer you solutions and I am not a dog trainer. She seems to have some insecurity issues and maybe just was born wired that way? Agility is great, obedience training is also good because both help establish a close relationship between you and your pup. Our current crew do have some things that drive them crazy and we have been able to reduce their barking alot with the use of a ultrasonic dog bark deterrent device. I got mine from Amazon, it is rechargeable and it is never used as punishment but rather an attention getter. When I have their attention I say "NO BARK" and they know the word no and it really does help. I just touch the button, I do not hold it down and as I said it is more a look at me thing. I also carry it on dog walks to stop aggressive barking of neighbor dogs as we pass if it looks like there may be an escalation. Again others may have better advice and this device might excite Luna more than stop her?? Again it is an attention device not a punishment device..and a quick touch of the button is all that is required. We also have established a routine that when they start going ballistic and it seems over top we put them in our mud room and shut the door. They know the routine and if we say Mud Room they know where they are going and they obey. Shelties are barkers and we have to deal with that and let them express themselves but it is important that they learn when enuf is enuf. Ours are 4 yrs now and have always been pretty good (there are still monsters like the broom monster, vacuum monster, food blender monster etc) that must be dealt with and I do not pull out the UDD but on occasion. Have you tried things like someone holding her while the piano is played (a few notes) and reward her is she does not bark even for a moment pause "Good no bark".. Again you want to reward good behavior not punish bad so you are a better judge of that line than me. I hope someone has some better ideas. One way or another it will take time to tame her excitement- Very best of luck..
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply and suggestions. We bought something called "bark buddy" from Amazon and it sends out an ultrasonic sound when she barks but it worked only 1 time. If it is still working and she hears the sound she ignores it. Maybe there is something similar but better we should look into. We have been going to Zoom Room, a national chain of dog training centers, for obedience and agility. She completed obedience and now we are enjoying agility. They offer 4 one-on-one sessions at their location but I am not sure if that will help since the triggers for her are here at home. But it is worth a try. Putting her in another room is necessary sometimes but so far it doesn't stop her from barking. We do not use punishment or negative techniques as we learned years ago that doesn't work with Shelties. I think it will just take time since she is only 14 months old.
 
Mignarda said:
I think one answer is to not stop doing whatever it is you're doing to set them off. Let it persist until they're inured to it. This has worked with Mr. Pip, who had some definite problems with the printer, the ceiling fan, the vacuum cleaner, and sounds coming from the computer. I just had to put up with his dramatics until at last he's so accustomed to hearing those noises that they hardly trigger a reaction. It takes patience, and a willingness to put up with some dramatics, but it's the most effective method I can think of.

Here he is with the printer at 4.5 months:

And the same printer today (8 months)
Click to expand...
Thank you for your message. I think you may be correct, just let it persist until she gets tired of it. Your video shows your dog behaving exactly as Luna does except she tries to jump up on the counter. She is small, 13 inches, but she very good at jumping. There have been a couple other lesser triggers that she seems to ignoring now so maybe it will just take time for this behavior to stop.
 
DaveFisher said:
Thank you for your reply and suggestions. We bought something called "bark buddy" from Amazon and it sends out an ultrasonic sound when she barks but it worked only 1 time. If it is still working and she hears the sound she ignores it. Maybe there is something similar but better we should look into. We have been going to Zoom Room, a national chain of dog training centers, for obedience and agility. She completed obedience and now we are enjoying agility. They offer 4 one-on-one sessions at their location but I am not sure if that will help since the triggers for her are here at home. But it is worth a try. Putting her in another room is necessary sometimes but so far it doesn't stop her from barking. We do not use punishment or negative techniques as we learned years ago that doesn't work with Shelties. I think it will just take time since she is only 14 months old.
Click to expand...
Yeah Dave the thing I mention is way different in that you control it not something that is automatic and as I said I don't use it often and just as an attention getter- hey look at me--then I give a command or just use the word stop bark-and praise when they do even for a few second. But that said I don't use it much and our still have their monsters that will always trigger them but I have noticed that over time their barking at monsters decreases in longevity, except for the broom monster!! I think the advice others have given about trying to desensitize you dog to the triggers is good.....praise for good moments of behavior with lots of praise helps. These triggers obviously raise an alarm reaction in the pup so teaching them that there is nothing to fear here and the proper way to behave is a great. I have a friend with a thunder sensitive dog and she comforts her dog with love and hugs when it thunders-- he is worse now than ever-- because thunder means now also means hugs so you have to be wise about how distract them and reward good behavior .... all of this without getting upset yourself-- ahhhh the raising of a four legged child... only to have them wrap you around their paws later....
 
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