Afraid Of Fan And Now Wary Of Light Switch Next To It Being Turned On

[lillim]

I have a bit of a problem and I hear that this is a great place for advice.

Our dog is scared of the ceilng fan, everytime I turn it on, she runs out out the lounge room and will not return unless there is serious bribery, even then she keeps her eye on the fan and jumps and whines at it unless we distract her constantly.

it has gotten to the point that even when I go to turn on the light switch which is located next to the fan switch, the dog will start to leave the lounge room and only stays when she realises the fan is not on.

We had this problem last spring/summer and after reading up on it, we decided to take the aproach to ignore her behaviour, which did not work then tried slowly introducing her to the fan being on. it didn't quite work, after a few weeks she would enter the room, but always keep an eye on the fan and occasionaly whine at it. This spring though, she has gone back to her previous behaviour.

Since there seem to be a multitude of ideas on the internet on how to deal with this, I am quite confused as they seem to suggest the opposite of what the other say.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

by the way, the dog is a 2 year old, female, ridgeback x mastiff (or at least we think)

[poodlefan]

I would totally ignore her behaviour. By marking it with a change in yours, you run the risk of triggering her anxiety. How long did you ignore it for last time?

My guess is that once she realises the sky isn't falling once the fan is turned on, she'll come back eventually.

Edited November 4, 2009 by poodlefan

[Parkeyre]

I would leave the fan on low full time. If the fan is making an obvious noise it shouldn't then i would get it fixed so it's not noticeable to the dog.

How many fans do you have? could you put them all on low and leave them on for a few days?

[Sandra777]

Ignore it. The more you try to convince her it's OK the more chances you have of actually reinforcing the fear rather than "comforting" her.

Just make it that fun stuff doesn't happen in another room when she's run away from the fan - like don't turn the fan on then go and give her dinner in the kitchen.

[Aidan]

I quite like this video:

The specifics are different but the process is the same and it is explained quite well. Have her with you on-leash, and go to touch the light-switch, immediately give her a treat, repeat until she looks forward to your hand going towards the light-switch. Then actually touch the switch, treat, repeat. The turn the switch on, treat, off, treat, repeat.

Doing this with the light switch is pretty harmless, it will give you an insight into the process of changing an emotional response. The next step is to transfer it to the fan, which is a pretty big leap. If you just turn the fan on VERY briefly (on then immediately off again, on the lowest setting) it shouldn't cause too much alarm. Repeat until you start to see a new response (happy, not fearful). Then gradually increase the time that you leave the fan on for.

If she freaks out at all, write back. Don't force it.

There are a few ways to handle this, the suggestion I have made is the easiest to understand and implement that usually gets quick results, IMHO.

[lillim]

to answer questions:

we tried ignoring the behavior for 3 weeks last time

we have 3 fans, 1 in the lounge room, 1 in the hallway leading to the loungeroom and 1 in the office

none of the fans make a noise

when the fans are on they are always on low, and always only 1 is on as we have a semi open plan house and there is no need for more than 1 to be on at a time

she also has a habit of 'checking on' of the fans even if there are off, if the fans have been on in the last day or so.

thans for the advice, I will keep you posted with how it goes.

[corvus]

It sounds like she is really spooked! I would definitely not ignore it, or flood her by putting the fans on all the time. There's no need to put her through that stress. Counter-conditioning does work, and very well IME. Also very quickly with domestic animals! With your dog it might take a little longer because she sounds very timid and very spooked by the fan. You may have to start by rewarding her just for being in the room at all. If she is not comfortable in the room and leaves as soon as you get near the light switch, start at the very beginning and just sit with her in the room for a few minutes at a time and feed her treats.

If you do decide to try counter-conditioning, a good idea is to count in your head how many seconds you leave the fan on. You can add a second every time until she reacts and then start from scratch, but I think it's better for counter-conditioning to avoid her reacting at all. So if she's all right with one second ten times in a row, move to two. Just as an example. She might be able to go faster than that.

[Nicole...]

Our BC pup looked up one night some months ago, saw there was a ceiling fan there (not switched on) and totally flipped out. We just ignored his behaviour and after about 4 days he gave in and decided it was ok to be in rooms with fans (as seen as he was restricting himself to the hallway, laundry and bathroom where there were no fans but not much fun :D ). After a couple of weeks, once he was totally at ease with them, we turned one on to low and while he was initially spooked, he adjusted much faster to that. He is now happy with them either turned on or off but we have noticed that if he gets startled or scared he will occasionally shoot a look up at the fan to see if that what caused the noise etc. It's funny how they develop these issues isn't it.

[Erny]

You could also have her observe you whilst you get up and touch the fans. Don't make a fuss/drama out of it. Even normal things such as though you were dusting them off with a cloth and completely ignoring her. You could toss down a treat or two if she's behaving normally/confident. Just do it randomly - main thing is to not make a big deal out of it. Pretend she's not around.

My boy hated the sound of me pulling the cords to make the wooden slat blinds open/close. He used to scoot right out of the room. I just completely ignored him. He doesn't care so much about it now.

Same deal with the vacuum cleaner. I ignored him. Now he's a pest because he tends to stay in the way, so little does he care about it .

But one of the points with these things is that he sees me handling these objects and sees me not giving a hoot about it.