Bird Phobias, Sound sensitivity

[Callie]

Does anyone else have issues with their BC being afraid of a particular bird chirping? I think it's a Carndial's chirp. My BC will be 3 years old in Sept. She has exhibited being frightened of this bird sound for some time. I've thought about taping the sound and working with her to desentize her...just ned to work on making the tape. It use to only happen in our FL home, then in TN home and now even when she hears it on the tv (not sure if it's the same chirp though)...she has been fleeing to the bedroom closet since Dec 2010 during these episodes. She may come back out within in a couple of minutes, but sometimes she will just lay down/fall asleep in there. Any suggestions on how to remedy this for her? Is this common for BCs? I think she has some noise sensitivity to water hitting the shower floor, hates the mowers, weed eaters in our yard and sometimes when neighbors do their yard work, garbage trucks, etc. I usually play frisbee with her in the house whem my husband is doing yard work. Initially when she was around maybe 7 months old (was spayed at 7 mos) is when she would lay flat on the ground or pull like a sled dog during our walks. For the longest time I could never associate anything that would produce such fear. She would tremble as well. I solicited help from a dog trainer that does Cayce Cover type training. He felt after working with her 5-6 times that is was a hormonal imbalance. We even went to a lower protein food to see if that was the problem. I really don't want to medicate which is what he thought might be my only resort. I also solicited my vet and he suggested another person that had worked with dogs for 30 years, owned a kennel, etc. and we took a class for 6 weeks where she suggested the class use pinch collars. It would help with her always walking way ahead of us (yes, I didn't train her to heal unfortunately...focused on the socialization and sit, stay, and exercise, etc.), but quite hoestly didn't want to continue to use it so I stopped. Her view was that I wasn't the pack leader. Gave the class exercises to do weekly to build the pack heirarchy such as straddling the dog, lightly holding the dog by the collar and having the other hand on top of the head (very little pressure) and the other was similar to an Alpha roll but not as intense or was a softer version. I work from home and am the one that structured and does most of the training, feeding, vet trips, etc.

 

I didn't expect to go into all this detail, but feel it's best to give you the total picture. She is a wondeful dog, loves everyone, very toy oriented for sure and intense BC!

 

I'd welcome your expertise on what I can do differently to help her not be so fearful in these instances.

[juliepoudrier]

Check out the post in this forum recently put by Liz P--title is "Noise Phobia (storm/fireworks). She posted it today I think.

 

J.

[Callie]

Thanks Julie...was just reading that post!