I won't bore you with the details, but Molly reacts strongly to people wearing close fitting bobble hats. She cannot seem to put distance between them and her quick enough. I wear either a fluffy fur hat or put my hood up. How do I deal with this? Difficult to predict when someone wearing a bobble hat will hove into view. I am not keen on the idea of wearing a bobble hat in the house to do the housework
Can you set up some scenarios with a stooge? My two would react to people wearing hoods or with covered faces at the beginning of the winter. They're still not happy about them, but they don't run up to them, barking, any more. This was just continued desensitisation whenever we came across someone like that, and asking a few of them to feed them treats.
I think I would swap my furry hat for a bobble hat and hopefully Molly will come to realise that they're not scary. Don't you just love the weird things that upset them
I had some chickens like that once, anyone wearing a hat could scatter them to the wind - sorry not very helpful.
Are you having a few things like this with Molly? I seem to recall you posting about her being scared of other things, too. Is it worth thinking about her overall routine? I mean, it's just so easy to get in a routine and our dogs get to do just the same thing day in and day out. I know I've been guilty of this. I don't think it's so good for dogs, they sort of 'desocialise' to new things or changes I think. It might be nothing like that with Molly, of course, it's just this definitely started happening to Charlie after his second op, and the solution was to take him to a new place everyday, even just for 10 minutes. I still try to do this 2 or 3 times a week if I can. Anyway, thought worth mentioning.
Tina, remind me do you have grandchildren? if so when they visit could you ask them to wear a bobble hat just for a couple of minutes, take it off and repeat a few times you could then take them into the garden and do the same. It might help x
Hats can be a real bugaboo for lots of dogs. Maybe because Oban was a winter puppy, and saw lots when he was young and impressionable, they don't bother him but spring puppy Jet woofed at people wearing hats with droopy parts to them. Molly does sound like her reaction is stronger than Jet's. What if you put the hat on the floor, or maybe on a doll, and rewarded her for looking, approaching, sniffing? You might not mind wearing the hat to do your housework if you were here today. -29C this morning and -40 (Fahrenheit and Cesius are the same temp. at -40) with the wind chill. The heat is on in the house but the wind seeps in minute cracks and it gets cool quickly in between each cycle of the furnace.
I think I will get a bobble hat and wear it round the house, leave it on the floor etc. My husband wears a baseball cap or a hat and she doesn't react to him when he comes in. I think I'll get him to pop the bobble hat on at the from door. I have a feeling that she finds it sinister because the hat subtley changes the shillouette of the person. Though my husband is very bald and she is used to that. Weird what triggers them.
I hadn't really thought about hats ... but that must be what winds up Wispa sometimes. One day she never puts a foot wrong, the next she is 'on her toes' the minute she sees someone approaching. I shall do a hat survey ...!
Coco is well-socialised to all sorts of hats - I have a huge selection of woolly hats, including bobble-hats. My name is Sue and I'm a hat-a-holic.
We used to have a Border Collie, who had no problem with people wearing hats, but if they took them off, she went crackers, racing round and trying to bite their ankles, until they put the hat back on!
I think the idea of you and your OH wearing bobble hats is not bad. Worth a try anyway! My Poppy reacts to people walking along with hoodies up. I suspect she notes that I am immediately a little wary, and reacts accordingly. Not that I'm suggesting that you feel funny about people with bobble hats... or do you??
It could just be she doesn't like it, rather than reading your body language (although that's entirely possible, too). I'm not at all fazed by people wearing their hoods up, having covered faces etc, because it's all part and parcel of living in a ski resort, but my two certainly didn't like it at the beginning of this season.
I'm from the US so I too had no idea what a bobble hat was! I usually call them a hat with a Poof on top Otis hates them too, and I've tried my best to work them into training. One time there was a little lady in the pet store wearing the cutest pink hat with a HUGE poof on top and Otis was going crazy, it was so embarrassing. We got him in August, so all of his early socialization did NOT include the range of winter clothing that exists! My husband got me a new winter jacket for Christmas and Otis wouldn't even come near me when I first put it on!
