Last Friday I left the house at 9.30am to go to work, got home at 12pm. Harley was really restless - pacing, whining and a bit growly. My neighbours had builders turn up to put scaffolding up around their house. We knew that this work was going to be done at some stage as they are doing our house too (we paid for the work nearly 2 years ago, but that's another story!). Anyway, no one told us and after speaking to the neighbours, they didn't know either. As soon as I opened the back door to let Harley out for a wee she went nuts - barking, barking and more barking ;( hackles up and she was very jittery. I managed to get her yo have a wee and had to drag her back in. We went out for the afternoon - when we had just got out of the front door a piece of scaffolding was dropped on concrete and made a really loud noise - Harley ran back inside so quickly that my hand got shut in the door and was bleeding loads. Eventually we managed to get out for a long walk to try and help not get her more stressed. This morning the builders were here again along with the builders replacing our fence. Harley knows 2 of the guys doing our fence but she just went nuts again - hackles up, barking constantly as well as jittery again. As I knew the fence was being done I arranged for Harley to go to day care today and tomorrow. Day care went fine but as soon as I let Harley into the garden when I got home she kept barking and kept running away from me. I tried bribing her with biscuits - no response, just more barking. I tried getting her dummy out (we don't use this one at home so usually very exciting) - no response except barking again. Eventually I managed to get her inside but she kept pacing, hackles up and generally restless. Tomorrow morning I will be here until she goes to day care and builders will be gone by the time she gets home. The scaffolding people are here all week so I have just arranged Harley to be in day care for most of the week. Sorry for the long story, but felt I needed to explain it all. My questions are: 1. What can I do to stop the barking? 2. Any suggestions on de-sensitising around the scaffolding as it's going to be in our garden in a few days? 3. I'm worried this might affect her being home alone......any thoughts? Harley is 17 months old and is usually really good with loud noises, lots of people in and out of the house/garden etc. I'm really worried about the impact this is having on her ;(
Re: Barking!! Your poor hand! I don't know if this is going to sound a bit silly, but a few of your posts recently have put me in mind of a teenager getting spooked by stuff. Also, there is a thread on positive gundogs about spooked teenagers too right now (so that's also put it in my mind). I don't know about all this second fear phase stuff (I just thought that was why we had to socialise puppies in the first place! ) but ongoing socialisation is really important. So it might be time to dig out those noise desensitisation CDs but also make sure she is not in a too "same old, same old" routine, and she is going to enough new places, new people, fancy dress, you know... Anyway, worth a thought. There might be nothing wrong with Harley, and it's all just normal stuff...
Re: Barking!! Sorry to hear of your problems, hope you hand gets better soon. Young dogs can easily get spooked by unfamilar sounds, and builders are not the quietest. If you have to leave her again in the house, put the radio on with some nice music it will help to calm her. We always have the radio on in the dog kennels. If you can get the builders to come and say hello and make a fuss of her, might help overcome the anxiety.
Re: Barking!! [quote author=JulieT link=topic=9572.msg138144#msg138144 date=1421708242] Your poor hand! I don't know if this is going to sound a bit silly, but a few of your posts recently have put me in mind of a teenager getting spooked by stuff. Also, there is a thread on positive gundogs about spooked teenagers too right now (so that's also put it in my mind). I don't know about all this second fear phase stuff (I just thought that was why we had to socialise puppies in the first place! ) but ongoing socialisation is really important. So it might be time to dig out those noise desensitisation CDs but also make sure she is not in a too "same old, same old" routine, and she is going to enough new places, new people, fancy dress, you know... Anyway, worth a thought. There might be nothing wrong with Harley, and it's all just normal stuff... [/quote] You might be onto something there Julie. She is always going to new places, seeing new people etc, but we don't often have a lot of people here. Our house is usually pretty quiet. I will have a think and read about what things I can do. I will get my CD out again and see if this helps a bit
Re: Barking!! That's very interesting Julie. We are having similar issues with Milly barking at weird things like she is all of a sudden scared of everything. Naya how old is Harley now?
Re: Barking!! Hi Annette, Harley is 17 months old now. I suppose they go through stages at different ages - I thought the second fear phase was around 9-10 months old, but I have read a few articles that actually have proven that this stage can be anything up to 2 years old! I have asked the builders if Harley can say hello out the frount of our house, then for her to walk around the back with them, rather than them just turning up in the garden. They gave agreed to do this each morning to try and help us
Re: Barking!! Thanks Naya. Milly is almost 14 months so maybe it's just a thing they go through at a maturity level not so much an age thing. Who knows! Lol Glad the builders are so willing to work with you. That should help a lot. Good luck.
