Noise phobia

Tortilla

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#21
Sally has always been terrified of thunder and fireworks. She hides in the bathtub, goes into weird rooms/places she doesn't normally go, pants heavily, etc. I never really made the connection that she's a herding breed and maybe they're more predisposed to having these types of noise fears/sensitivities. It's weird because we live right next to a massive international airport and the loud planes have never bothered her at all.

Seamus doesn't seem to notice loud noises at all.
 

Laurelin

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#22
Bernard wants under the covers and shakes. I'll have to pass on the xanax recommendation to my sister for him. Bernard was also only 2 when he started having his anxiety.

Owned by BCs can you elaborate on the lines? Even a pm would be good.
 

Emily

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#24
Ok, Elegy, I've been dying to ask somebody this. My roommate's dog takes Xanax for storms and fireworks also... Does it give Steve the munchies? LOL Because her dog is normally very reserved/inhibited around food, but on Xanax, oh man, he's like a teenage boy, he'll eat anything he can find. One night he chewed open and ate an entire bottle of honey, and that's soooo not like him. I looked it up and it seems people get the munchies from Xanax, and I'm wondering if anybody else's dog does!

Original topic: Keeva doesn't care about fireworks/storms at all, but I know of plenty of Cardis who do.
 
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#25
Just sent this back to BowWowFlix: Dog Behavior, Medicine & Training: Storm & Other Phobias, Ian Dunbar

On the DVD, apparently the formula for a "noise phobic dog" is- Large, Black, Herding breed

That would be Enda, who was destroyed by two seperate events during her second major fear period. Not saying she would have turned out normal had I done SEVERAL things differently, as yes I also believe there is a major correlation with genetics. All I can say this far in Beaucerons, stay away from pedigrees with a bitch by the name of "Tennessee" in it.

But also mentioned in that DVD which was interesting, dogs who show noise phobia before the age of 1 year are the ones who usually have it for life and tend to get worse. This would explain why Jinjo is getting much better, he's always had an under the bed hiding thing with the vacuum cleaner since puppyhood, but he wasn't "noise phobic" till an bad instance with my brother and some bottle rockets when he was about 4-5 years old. In 2008 was when the terror started though, my father got a present the previous year of a Nail gun, we were building the chicken coop for our new lot of 26 chickens, and that was it for him. No idea what happened, but a few years later it was so bad when we torn apart the stair case to replace the warped landing, he actually some how managed to jump across the hole in the floor that went to the basement, and I found him shaking and drooling in the bathtub! Fast forward, yesterday afternoon a few neighbors decided to unload some left over fireworks, I had my two in the back yard and instantly Enda ran to hide in the garage, Jinj, sat by the fence keeping one angry eye on a certain naughty sheep, he was NORMAL!

So, I do believe and see a lot of what was said on the video, and I would suggest you rent it if you have BowWow if you have a dog with noise issues, I found it to be very interesting.
 

elegy

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#26
Ok, Elegy, I've been dying to ask somebody this. My roommate's dog takes Xanax for storms and fireworks also... Does it give Steve the munchies? LOL Because her dog is normally very reserved/inhibited around food, but on Xanax, oh man, he's like a teenage boy, he'll eat anything he can find. One night he chewed open and ate an entire bottle of honey, and that's soooo not like him. I looked it up and it seems people get the munchies from Xanax, and I'm wondering if anybody else's dog does!
LOL That is too funny! It does not give Steve the munchies. It'd kinda be handy if it did, because it would help with counter-conditioning. He's still too stressed by storms to take food, even with Xanax :-/

ETA: The Canine Behavioral Genetics project out of UCSF is also looking specifically at noise phobias. Somebody actually contacted me asking if I'd be able to send Steve's DNA to them because he's a stormphobic BC with known lines.
 

JessLough

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#27
I always thought of it as a noise-sensitivity correlation, too.

Rosey, thankfully, couldn't care less of storms and fireworks and, well, anything. It would have made sense for her to learn it because I am terrified of thunder, but, she never has.

Harley is fine with noises too. Renegade needs to be sedated for fireworks, and Ella hates loud noises so I'm sure she'd need to be (I wasn't home for Canada day fireworks). I'm not surprised, Halrley had a fabulous home before me, whilst ren and Ella's previous homes are questionable
 

Brattina88

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#28
When I first got Bailey I ordered a thundershirt because of how flighty she is, I thought for sure she would be terrified of storms and thunder. But much to my surprise, it doesnt bother her at all. Luckily, a friend needed the thundershirt lol :p So on the fourth we were all outside and 5 houses down they started shooting off fire works, she wasn't phased... which shocks me every time. Good grrl Bailey!
 

Gypsydals

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#29
I think it can be both. Peewee was never bothered by loud noises. Now a boom from either fireworks or thunder has him running and hiding. He does have more of a reaction to fireworks than thunder though. And hes 14. I think the move had him stressed and with all the fireworks going off just sent him over the edge.
 
K

Kaydee

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#30
Interesting thought, I guess it might be that dog hearing is way more advanced than cats? I'm not really sure. But the dog paces and shivers then lays in the dark quiet bathroom during storms or even rain. The cats just lay around,even in open windows snoozing. Maybe an ear will twitch with a particularly loud bang, but otherwise they seem oblivious. Is it just more a dog thing?
 
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#31
I have one cat who is very storm-phobic, he hides under the couch - sometimes even if it is just raining (although he's getting a bit deaf in his old age and doesn't always hear it when it just rains anymore).

None of our current dogs seem to have a problem. Sometimes Pip will bark, and once the fireworks have started on the 4th he doesn't like to go outside, but other than that they really don't react. Which is really nice... one of my old dogs was terribly storm/firework phobic and would just pace and pace and pant and pace and pant inconsolably.
 

Babyblue5290

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#32
Art is in absolutely no way noise sensative to things like fireworks, storms, guns (found this out at the dogpark >_<) or anything big and loud like that. But he can *sometimes* be noise sensative to *click* sounds or popping.
 

OwnedByBCs

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#33
I have a dog who is sensitive to Lightsabers- does that count? I have a Lightsaber app on my phone which Riot hates. Any time I'm watching Star Wars (which is very often) she glares at me and does a low *rrrrruuffff* at the TV.

I'm not sure if that is legitimate, and would be useful to BAER, but I think its pretty funny personally. She has no other noise sensitivities though :p
 

JessLough

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#34
Interesting thought, I guess it might be that dog hearing is way more advanced than cats? I'm not really sure. But the dog paces and shivers then lays in the dark quiet bathroom during storms or even rain. The cats just lay around,even in open windows snoozing. Maybe an ear will twitch with a particularly loud bang, but otherwise they seem oblivious. Is it just more a dog thing?
I've always heard cats have better hearing, as they rely on hearing for hunting (listening for scurrying of prey), and have more muscles in their ears to swivel their ears for best pick-up of sound.

There's definitely noise sensitive cats, but just as not every dog is going to freak at storms or fireworks, not every cat will. To go by the small numbers you have at home isn't very correct...
 

RD

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#35
Eve is a thunderphobe and a pyrophobe. Fireworks, gunshots, thunder, even super loud construction gives her a bad time. Her reaction is just displaying symptoms of stress - ears back, tense posture and panting. She comforts herself by coming to me and flipping herself on her back, or going in a corner and flipping herself onto her back. It's very weird. Most dogs I know DO NOT want to be on their backs when they stress, in fact my old dog who was noise-phobic would've eaten your face off if you tried to roll her over while she was upset. Eve however seems to take comfort in it.

She was exposed to a lot of loud noise as a pup, with no issue. When she was a couple years old, we moved to Mexico and there was basically constant, deafening construction and pounding on the house. By necessity, Eve was crated through a lot of this, and I think that construction is what caused her discomfort with banging on buildings. I have no idea how that relates to fireworks and gunshots and thunder, though.
 

Bailey08

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#36
I don't have a huge sample of dogs, but those I know who have thunder phobia do have other anxiety issues. I tend to think they're related, at least in some dogs. I also can't help but think that it's often genetic.

My anxious dog, thankfully, doesn't care at all about thunderstorms or fireworks. I don't know if it's because is was exposed to them a lot when he was a puppy, along with other loud noises like sirens, or not. Instead of "regular" noise phobias, though, he has weird ones -- he hates, hates the freezer because (over a year ago!) I used to have a problem with overfilling it (between his food and mine) and things would sometimes fall out and apparently it was very scary. Even when I break his frozen food patties apart, I have to do it away from him because he gets a little stressy.

Grace doesn't really react to loud noises (she's five months old), except that the fireworks kind of startled her, but she recovered quickly. After field training, I can't help but wonder if she isn't a little "game on!" when she hears something that sounds like a gunshot. :)
 
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Kaydee

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#37
So from what I'm reading it seems to just be an individual thing, not breed or species...except I know I see those cats smirking when that poor dog scuttles through, if lightning doesn't hit the food dish they sleep...
 

OwnedByBCs

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#38
Kaydee, I don't know about most breeds but thunder phobia is rampant in Border Collies, it's not just coincidence.
 

RD

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#39
Border collies are BRED to be sensitive to sounds, dogs that need to pick whistle commands from a great distance away, out of a ton of livestock noise. The same sound sensitivity that drives pet dogs up a wall comes in handy for working dogs. I think it's a similar situation for a lot of the super-responsive herding breeds and some of the working breeds.
 

Paige

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#40
My dog is sound sensitive but not enough to the point of being fearful of thunderstorms. He clings a little closer but can still settle in a stressful situation.
 

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