Anxiety Around Noise

[huski]

I am having a problem with Micha and I'm not sure what I should be doing to help him.

He's usually a pretty calm, confident dog but the last few months he has been growing more and more anxious about loud noises - especially thunder (storms are fine it's just thunder that freaks him out) and this past week our neighbours have been renovating and the noise of the nail gun being used next door is affecting him too.

He starts by panting and pacing, then desperately tries to come inside and tries to push himself through the door (left open enough for Cherry and Daisy but too small for him to get through without me opening it). He'll jump up at the door and cry and has taken to knocking over his water bowl to get our attention too.

We have one of those water bowls with an upside down bottle in it and mum just called me to tell me he has again this morning knocked it over and bent it out of shape to get attention.

If I let him inside he calms down a bit but still pants and paces a bit and desperately tries to get close to us by getting on the lounge (which he never does). It is obviously causing him a lot of stress and anxiety and I worry about what happens when thunder or other loud noises happen when we aren't at home. He's better if it's the noise next door but worse if it's a thunder storm.

He's turned seven last year and I don't know if it can be something that gets worse as they get older, he definitely has not always been like this.

I've emailed our trainer about the above but I just thought I'd put it out there on DOL in case anyone has any ideas or experiences they can share, I've never had a dog like this before and I'm not sure what I can do to help him.

[Aidan]

I've always used systematic desensitisation to deal with this sort of issue. The key is to condition strongly enough to see physical signs of association before you increase the stimulus. I think that is often where people can go wrong, they don't condition properly. Think of Pavlov, he was measuring how much drool the dogs were producing.

This sort of anxiety can sometimes be helped by tryptophan supplementation in conjunction with a small carb-based meal (protein <20%). About a level teaspoon of "Good as Gold" (horse supplement) for a dog Micha's size, with breakfast. Also add some B-vitamins, I use Brewer's Yeast. While we know that if a dog's diet is deficient in tryptophan they will suffer anxiety, we don't know that increasing tryptophan will improve the situation but sometimes it does. In any case it's cheap and it's just food.

If it's bad and on-going, medication can help. Some of the better herbal preparations can also be effective, e.g St. John's Wort is something I have positive experience with. I quite enjoy Kava myself but have never tried it with a dog, it has been used clinically before though with success.

[corvus]

T Touch.

Actually, Erik is going through a "Is that bad??" stage and is a bit stressed about thunderstorms at the moment. At least, he was until I played a wild game of tug with him and did some training during a storm one day. That sure helped a lot. Otherwise, I sit with him and massage. If nothing else, it interrupts the cycle so he's not getting up to bark every time he hears the thunder. I do believe that massage is inherently calming as well.

[huski]

Thanks guys... Aidan I will look into the food related stuff you suggested.

Sometimes when it happens I am not always able to stop and spend time training him, as I'm either not home or I'm getting ready for work. I am also getting a bit suspicious that he carries on more if he thinks that it means we'll let him inside even if he's not that anxious (he is outside unless I can supervise him inside, as he has and can quite easily hurt himself on our floor boards).

Will try and work on training him when I am home and able to though, and doing some desensitizing stuff.

[corvus]

If he's not actually scared, ignore him. Dogs can't fake being anxious. Consider that if he acts up more (as in, noisier, more panting etc.) when you're around, it's because it actually did get him inside last time, but you don't have to not let him in to lower the intensity of his reactions. You just need to pre-empt him and let him in before he starts making a lot of noise. If you miss it, you miss it. Not the end of the world. Go into damage control and let him in before he upsets the neighbours/himself/learns to use more intense signals again. View it as a shaping exercise, but as one where you have a small window of opportunity to shape and if you miss it it's no longer a training opportunity. What I would do (and have done) is go outside and calm him down out there before you let him in. Then at least you disrupt the link a bit. Even if you don't break it completely, you can muddy it and start forming a new link between entering the house and being in a calmer state of mind.

I'm very much an advocate of doing whatever I can to calm an anxious dog. Nuts to reinforcing fearful behaviour. It's never been a problem to me, and I've reassured all three of my dogs with attention when they were anxious. At least you're addressing the cause of the behaviour rather than the behaviour itself.

[wuffles]

Our dog has a similar reaction to thunder, panting, pacing and trying to be close to us.... but only when he knows we're there. If he's outside and knows we're inside, he'll scratch at the door to come in. But, if he's outside alone and we're not home, we're pretty sure he just huddles in his kennel and waits for the storm to be over. We've tested the theory a few times by pretending to leave and peeking out from behind the curtains and each time he's gone into his kennel and emerged well after the thunder is over. I wonder if Micha would be similar?

[Aidan]

Will try and work on training him when I am home and able to though, and doing some desensitizing stuff.

That's the key. There's not much you can do that will have any real benefit when an actual storm hits, or the actual nail gun is going off.

[perfect partners]

I am having a problem with Micha and I'm not sure what I should be doing to help him.

He's usually a pretty calm, confident dog but the last few months he has been growing more and more anxious about loud noises - especially thunder (storms are fine it's just thunder that freaks him out) and this past week our neighbours have been renovating and the noise of the nail gun being used next door is affecting him too.

He starts by panting and pacing, then desperately tries to come inside and tries to push himself through the door (left open enough for Cherry and Daisy but too small for him to get through without me opening it). He'll jump up at the door and cry and has taken to knocking over his water bowl to get our attention too.

We have one of those water bowls with an upside down bottle in it and mum just called me to tell me he has again this morning knocked it over and bent it out of shape to get attention.

If I let him inside he calms down a bit but still pants and paces a bit and desperately tries to get close to us by getting on the lounge (which he never does). It is obviously causing him a lot of stress and anxiety and I worry about what happens when thunder or other loud noises happen when we aren't at home. He's better if it's the noise next door but worse if it's a thunder storm.

He's turned seven last year and I don't know if it can be something that gets worse as they get older, he definitely has not always been like this.

I've emailed our trainer about the above but I just thought I'd put it out there on DOL in case anyone has any ideas or experiences they can share, I've never had a dog like this before and I'm not sure what I can do to help him.

I've known of several dogs, including one of my own, that didn't worry about thunder when they were young, but started to when they got older and their hearing was going, which seems strange as you would think they would worry less as it wouldn't seem so loud. My 2 y.o. Newf doesn't pant or seem anxious, but gets up and barks at it so last time I sat at the computer and had her in a drop beside me and each time there was a thunder clap I gave her a treat. That seemed to work well as she only got up and barked once, at a paticularly loud thunder clap. Will see how it goes next time.