So my poor Maisie has just had the fright of her life and I have NO IDEA what over. We were headed off on a walk and were headed down a route we have taken many times. Very close to the house. Maisie all of a sudden gets very alert so I look around to see if there's a dog, cat, bird, construction... anything weird or interesting. I can't see anything. Can't hear anything except what might be a dog or cat making noise (but very far off, like several streets at minimum). Meanwhile Maisie has gotten scared so I start doing what normally works - give her a treat, ask for another behaviour to distract her. She eats her kibble for a sit but then is too scared for this to even work - wouldn't touch a sardine I offered her!! Her tail goes between her legs, curled, and she turns and wants to go home. She's plastering herself to the sidewalk and pulling... as we get closer to the house she stops pulling, has an anxiety poo on the sidewalk, and we go inside. She's afraid even in the house and asks to go on my bed and here we are... Just sitting on the bed recovering from whatever that was. Not sure how I could have handled it differently. I may take her that way tomorrow to see if she is ok there or we will build up getting closer if she still isn't. I can only think it was a sound or smell I couldn't hear or smell or something small she saw that I missed..
Re: Big fright for Maisie That is really strange it must of been a smell or something?? Hopefully after lots of cuddles she will be ok ☺️ Tummy rubs being sent from me x
Re: Big fright for Maisie Oh bless! This happened to my mums dog when they were out one day and she was off lead. She turned tail and ran as fast as she could towards home. She got onto the road and everything! Luckily some passers by managed to stop her long enough for mum to catch up. To this day we still don't know what spooked her but we figured it might have been a fox or badger maybe. For the next few walks mum kept her on her lead and rewarded her for staying close and not being scared. After a couple of weeks she just got over it so whatever spooked her obviously disappeared.
Re: Big fright for Maisie I took her out (because we didn't get our first walk in) and she is still acting scared on our street. Once we got to the park, she became normal so I let her off lead and we played fetch and what not. She seemed to be okay even though there was a big mower going across the street (something that sometimes scares her a bit). But then walking back, once we hit the main street that connects to ours, she did NOT want to walk towards our house and was acting scared. Then once we got on our street, she wanted to book it straight up into our house (but this time I tried to stop when she pulled so I'm not allowing her to pull/reinforce pulling as so far we've been really good on that). So we'll see! I think she just got spooked by something big and now has surrounding fear or something… she would still take treats so she wasn't as upset.
Re: Big fright for Maisie Oh bless her cotton socks! How old is Maisie? Don't pups go through a fear stage.... here's something I read a few weeks ago about it: 6 to 14 months Second Fear Imprint Period or Fear of New Situations Period. Dog again shows fear of new situations and even familiar situations. Dog may be reluctant to approach someone or something new. It is important that you are patient and act very matter of fact in these situations. Never force the dog to face the situation. DO NOT pet the frightened puppy or talk in soothing tones. The puppy will interpret such responses as praise for being frightened. Training will help improve the dog's confidence. This fear period is normally more marked in male dogs. You probably know this already but it certainly sounds like you did everything absolutely right! It's probably more worrying because you can't pinpoint what it was but I expect the principles of recovery are the same whether you know the source or not. It could have been a new smell in the vicinity. I'm sure it'll get better
Re: Big fright for Maisie I realize there is a big construction project going on very close (but out of sight) of where we were… I think the sound of it or maybe they made a high pitched noise while doing something and she got scared because she couldn't see what it was. She does like to stop and look at things and have a think about whether they're scary, but usually she decides they aren't scary. She's only been very scared today and once she found a lion statute VERY scary but she mostly barked at it and growled at it (and we've walked by it several times without incident now). She is 24 weeks so about 5 1/2 calendar months. I usually talk to her when she sees something and she's considering whether it is frightening, but I don't use my praise voice, rather it's usually "oh hmm, what is that? That's interesting, isn't it." and other such nonsense in a normal tone to try to tell her "eh, that's fine, we don't care" and usually she's fine. She's so alert to everything like she is always looking looking looking. But the good news is we went out for a walk and I looped around to that area (after she was much better on our street) and we approached it a different way and were able to walk by without incident. She even stopped to investigate a big pile of branch cuttings. The neighbours also installed some of these huge leafy plants that are her ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE in the grassy area outside their house… so she had to investigate those too. So seems like she'll be able to forgive and forget whatever made her so frightened, thankfully. Not being able to leave the house to pee would be a problem!!
Re: Big fright for Maisie aw bless her, Sonny still gets scared quite easily and he is 7 months now. maybe something high pitched or a bee in the grass. Sonny has found a couple of bees in the last few weeks and a butterfly
Re: Big fright for Maisie [quote author=maisiesmomma link=topic=10397.msg153129#msg153129 date=1427755680] once she found a lion statute VERY scary but she mostly barked at it and growled at it [/quote] Hah, Hah! That was the thing I missed off Charlie's socialisation list. The first time we went to Stone Lion vet hospital (yup, two stone lions outside) he was not a happy puppy. Until he discovered Stone Lions hand out sea biscuits, they just magically appear on their paws. Now, he just casually wees on them as we pass by...(and has a quick check for sea biscuits). ;D ;D ;D
Re: Big fright for Maisie Went to a farm shop yesterday, and took Tara for a walk, as mother went into shop. Outside are two huge dummy sheep - and Tara took one look, and legged it, dragging me behind! She did not even bother to check if they were dogs! People in the farm shop cafe were killing themselves laughing. She even want to the other side of the car, when we came back, just to avoid the sheep.
Re: Big fright for Maisie [quote author=JulieT link=topic=10397.msg153138#msg153138 date=1427785276] [quote author=maisiesmomma link=topic=10397.msg153129#msg153129 date=1427755680] once she found a lion statute VERY scary but she mostly barked at it and growled at it [/quote] Hah, Hah! That was the thing I missed off Charlie's socialisation list. The first time we went to Stone Lion vet hospital (yup, two stone lions outside) he was not a happy puppy. Until he discovered Stone Lions hand out sea biscuits, they just magically appear on their paws. Now, he just casually wees on them as we pass by...(and has a quick check for sea biscuits). ;D ;D ;D [/quote] We went past another statue today… (I realized I wrote statute earlier - eek! Perils of being a law student, you say statute more than statue….) and I realized that Maisie is afraid of them, definitely! It was a little Buddha statue this time, and she just looked over at and BARKED! I got her to do a couple behaviours, gave some treats, gave her some dried sardines for approaching closer. I think it's because they look like a type of creature, yet don't move at all? I'm very glad I got a car now because I'm going to ask one of my friends to come downtown with me on the weekend, and we'll go on a statue hunt and put some really tasty treats on them. The ones we've passed have all been at least half-way up someone's lawn - so I don't feel comfortable getting super close to them as I would be really getting onto another person's property. But there are loads of statues downtown (a couple even have dogs) that are public property areas, so I can work on them a lot easier and put a lot of delicious treats by them. In other news, although Maisie is over the big fright, I think she is indeed entering a fear period. She was afraid of the sound a recycling box made when it scraped the pavement this morning, and wouldn't go near it for a bit, even though she generally LOVES investigating recycling boxes on her walks on recycling day! It's very odd for me as she was a hugely confident pup, although she's always been super alert and looking at things. She's not a very sensitive soul in general so it's a bit weird for me when she's afraid of stuff. I guess I'll keep going out with the good stuff and continue with the matter of fact talking and helping her get closer to stuff.
Re: Big fright for Maisie Sorry Maisie had a fright....sounds like she got plenty of tlc when she got home.We can see and hear some heavy duty construction going on where we walk ...it's cranked up on the last months,lots of diggers,rollers ,tractors all making that beep beep noise,it definately put Dexter on high alert when it became busier.even now if he sees the top of one of the cabs moving in the distance on the crest of a dune he looks a bit worried ....could just have likely been a smell ,hard to tell x
