SincereArtisan Posted November 27, 2008 Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 Rune has always detested shiny/slick surfaces. Well, I say always, but it manifested around the 15mo mark. I can think of nothing that caused it, apart from the lack of traction. And lack of traction = Rune panicks, which in turn = Rune tries to walk on her toenails, which in the end = Rune pinwheeling out of control or splayed on shiny/slick floor trembling. I've. Tried. Everything. Treats. Focus. Toys. Hamsters. Ignoring her seems to be the best option, because if I ignore her and keep walking--in turn dragging her with me--she winds up skittering after me to keep up instead of splaying out. She will NOT look at me if she is on a shiny surface, unless we are standing still--but when I go to move she splays. Where we've been living, we have slick floor in the hall to go outside. Their area and crates are around the corner from it. I believe a lot of the phobia has been come from them turning the corner too quick--BC enthusiasm--and their legs just sweep out from underneath them as they try and 'dig in' to get around the corner the quickest. They race to get everywhere--Yet again, BC enthusiasm--and even making them wait, sit, and go slow does not make them take the corner any slower. They'll walkwalkwalkomgskitterroundcornerwalkwalk to their area/crates. Its...exasperating! This is getting to be an issue because Ido has picked up on it. Now they both go manic trying to cross shiny surfaces. This is a problem as we have a shiny kitchen floor between the dogs and the way outside in the new house. I took them out there last night to introduce them to their new back yard, and well...the problem was getting them TO the back door. They panicked, skittered, and splayed their way across it with heaps of encouragement...but I'd like to train them to a bell on the door, and this will be impossible if they are too scared to reach the bell. Idealy, we'd like to have hardwood throughout the house one of these days. (I can see it now..."BCs on ice!"...Oi.) Do you all think they'll eventually overcome this hurdle with having to cross that floor every day to go outside? I'm very much hoping so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.DaisyDuke Posted November 27, 2008 Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 I believe a lot of the phobia has been come from them turning the corner too quick--BC enthusiasm--and their legs just sweep out from underneath them as they try and 'dig in' to get around the corner the quickest. Daisy looses her legs on short carpet frequently, so I'm not sure it's ONLY the shiny floor! I think it's mostly the enthusiasm...We have lino and tile in parts of our house and she seems to do fine on these surfaces..mind you we've always been in this house, so she grew up used to it. She will not sit on these surfaces, it's quite funny actually, you can see her hind legs slowly sliding out sideways from under her, then she gets up and sits on carpet. You can tell it irritates her! She has also bailed good going up the tile stairs on numerous occasions...but it doesn't seem to bother her one bit. I think they will get used to it after a while...once they figure out how much pressure to put on which legs, when. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northof49 Posted November 27, 2008 Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 Can you not put a runner in the hallway for her? Not only is there the mental stress, but the high risk of her doing physical injury to herself. I had one dog several years ago that had a minor seizure from being kicked in the head by a cow, and the seizure happened while she was on the lino flooing in the bathroom. Since she was aware of what was going she, she became very stressed about walking on that type of flooring afterwards. So, I put a couple of light runners down gong through the kitchen to the water bowl etc. I could just throw them in the washing machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanillalove Posted November 27, 2008 Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 Since living in my house, my mom has slowly replaced the carpets with all hardwood, so Pete has been flying all over the house on the new surfaces and when he finally gets used to one, hardwood shows us somewhere else! But, he has adjusted and I'm sure Rune will too. If not.. could you start an "inside walking" rule and teach it as any other behaviour? I don't know if it would work, but you could give it a try! I was going to suggest a runner or something, but if you taught her how to walk on surfaces, she would be fine in environments where a runner isn't always available, especially if you plan on getting more shiny surfaces in your house. We had to "teach" Petey to walk down our new hardwood stairs, he used to fly down them at hyperspeed, but now we've taught him to take it a stair at a time, slowwwwwlyyyyy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SincereArtisan Posted November 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 I would really prefer not to have runners all through my house. Though most of the house is currently carpeted, we want to gradually replace it all with hardwood flooring. I feel that placing runners everywhere isn't going to help solve the issue, as I'd only be catering to Rune's fear instead of teaching her how to cope and assisting her to overcome it. Ido will actually overcome her hesitation when fetching a ball is concerned...its a shame Rune just lacks that type of focus, LoL. Unless I hang a squirrel on a string and carry it with me, I don't see how I'd ever going to get her to focus on me and not the floor, LoL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barb Scott Posted November 27, 2008 Report Share Posted November 27, 2008 We carpeted our galley-style kitchen after Brandy had TPLO surgery so that she (and the other BCs) wouldn't run and slide and then turn the corner to the back door. I love it! Barb S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maralynn Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 I would really prefer not to have runners all through my house. Though most of the house is currently carpeted, we want to gradually replace it all with hardwood flooring. I feel that placing runners everywhere isn't going to help solve the issue, as I'd only be catering to Rune's fear instead of teaching her how to cope and assisting her to overcome it. Ido will actually overcome her hesitation when fetching a ball is concerned...its a shame Rune just lacks that type of focus, LoL. Unless I hang a squirrel on a string and carry it with me, I don't see how I'd ever going to get her to focus on me and not the floor, LoL. Look at it this way - you'd be teaching her that it's no big deal to go through the kitchen to go outside. Once they're used to it, then you can start eliminating the runners one by one. Right now the shiny slick floor is reinforcing the "yikes, I've got to be careful" mentality. No slick floor = no big deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northof49 Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 With a number of short runners,you can start to spread them out after a while- so the dogs have to take one step to go from matt to matt, then 2 steps, etc. All the flailing and doing bambi impressions on ice are going to result in pulled muscles, ligaments, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 I have a dog who's afraid of shiny floors (it started later in life, and I even had her eyes examined wondering if there was a change in her vision that caused the sudden fear where there was none before), except when she's stalking a cat and forgets about it (but she never forgets completely-she just goes further out onto the floor than she normally would before she has that OMG! response). Frankly, I just deal with runners or small throw rugs or whatever. To me that's a better option than a dog that's freaked out every time I need to get her out the back door, and as others have mentioned I also don't have to worry about her damaging herself in the process. Jill will cross a good expanse of the kitchen to get to the back door if she can see the rug that's in the back hallway. If she can't see the rug (I assume she's aiming for it as she crosses), she tends to freak out and do the scrabbling thing. So Northof49's idea could certainly work. J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SincereArtisan Posted November 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 I may try the spreading out of the rugs thing, and gradually phasing them out...thats a great idea. Luckily, there are no corners on the way to the back door...its just they balk about getting over the threshold. I could also be over-analyzing this, as they've only been to the place ONCE. LoL. Moving day is tomorrow, by the end of next week I should have a more comfortable idea as to whether or not the runners will be necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northof49 Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 One of the dogs we brought into rescue several years ago had never been in a house and so totally freaked at the lino flooring. So the foster mom put down hunks of rug that were basically touching each other and after about a month started to spread them out. Eve had lot of other things that needed working on, so the floor issue was way down the list. It took a couple of months to get her to walking on the slick flooring with confidence, simply by spreading the bits of rug further and further apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bc4pack Posted November 28, 2008 Report Share Posted November 28, 2008 I feel that placing runners everywhere isn't going to help solve the issue, as I'd only be catering to Rune's fear instead of teaching her how to cope and assisting her to overcome it. With runners you are helping her work through the issue by breaking it into baby steps... Let her build confidence one paw at a time... Ya don't learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grinning.girl Posted November 29, 2008 Report Share Posted November 29, 2008 Ya don't learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end, right? I did, but thats besides that point.... lol Maybe go to a carpet store and get the sample pieces that they have, you can buy them pretty cheap. and set them out for training purposes? cheaper then buying runners if you don't want them. ETA: also runners and rugs (w/o) the non slip backing stuff will slid all over the place, possibly freaking her out more. just a thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dognutmom Posted November 29, 2008 Report Share Posted November 29, 2008 Oh this is too funny .... my Blaze just had a run in with a shiny floor on Thanksgiving!! We have hardwood floor in the foyer, hall and kitchen and have had it for years with no problem. We just put in hardwood in the livingroom which is off of the foyer. We were still sitting in the dining room (which is on the other side of the foyer) after Thanksgiving dinner and Blaze was bringing us The Ball. My son threw it into the foyer but it rolled into the livingroom and Blaze went tearing after it and started sliding. He slid right across the room and into the bookshelves! He somehow got out of there by walking Very Gingerly, but without The Ball. Now convinced that the floor and the bookshelves were Evil, it took him at least half an hour to get the courage to walk across the Evil Floor to get The Ball ... which was now nestled up against the Evil Biting Bookshelves! The horror of it all!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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