Help! My dog has developed a noise phobia!

Did you know I'm a certified noise phobia consultant?

If your dog has developed a noise phobia, here are my biggest tips for you to prevent the phobia from becoming worse.

1) The most important step is to remove the trigger. Avoid anything that exposes your dog to the noise they are frightened of. Before we begin any behaviour modification, your dog needs a good couple of weeks trigger free. Why is this so important? Well, if your dog is constantly being exposed to their trigger, it will escalate. It also means when we begin to re-introduce the trigger at a volume they can cope with, we won't get anywhere because they are being exposed regularly to a volume they cannot cope with. This would undo all of our hard work.

2) Reduce other stress in your dog's life. A dog's emotional sink can only cope with so much. If they are feeling 'on edge' anticipating a noise trigger this can mean their sink is already more full than usual. For a dog to engage well with behaviour modification, we want them to feel calm enough to be able to focus.

3) Do not punish your dog. When I use the word punishment, a lot of people think I mean hitting or similar. But in this context, I mean telling your dog off or forcing them to endure something they find scary. Put yourself in their position and imagine how you would feel if you were truly frightened of something and someone told you off for it or forced you to 'do as you were told' when you were feeling so scared. A good example of this is when people tell me their dog is frightened of going outside in the dark around bonfire night because they associate darkness with fireworks but they are still insisting on dragging their dog on their usual evening walk.

4) Increase your dog's choices where possible. They are likely to feel out of control at the moment. Help them feel a bit more empowered by giving them choice when you can. Some examples of this are holding out two chews/treats to choose from and letting them choose where to go on their walk (this is called a dog led walk). If they indicate they have had enough and would like to go home, let them!

5) Ensure your dog is receiving adequate breed specific enrichment. This will of course be different for each breed. A terrier might love digging, a Labrador might like swimming, a spaniel is likely to enjoy sniffing and searching. The emotional sink I talked about in step 2, this will help to gradually empty it.

These are our short term solutions.

For long term solutions, I can create a bespoke noise exposure therapy programme for you and your dog.

Contact me for more information.

Written by: Nicola Cook (VSPDT, CSAT)