Scared of Music?!

[Emmazool]

Hi Everyone,

I am somewhat new to this forum (only my second post) and a newish dog owner. We got our Border Collie pup, Scout, just over a year ago, he's 15 months old and we're totally in love! He's an amazing companion but sometimes these issues come up that puzzle me, so I'm grateful I found this forum. So here's the new puzzling behavior: in the last two weeks Scout suddenly seems to be scared of music or a movie playing off the computer in the living room. We watch movies often (couple times a month) for his whole life on the laptop in bed and I thought we regularly listen to music as well, but now, it seems all of a sudden, he cant handle it when we listen to music or watch anything in the living room. He still seems to be ok with it at night while we're in bed. When we have music on, like we did today, he starts panting and shaking if he's laying down. He also starts jumping up on me and trying to get my attention to pet him and be affectionate-- which is strange because he isn't that affectionate of a guy. And if he is, its not in this kind of anxious way. He does this kind of jumping on me and basically trying to sit in my lap or sprawl across my shoulders and seems to really want me to caress and pet him. He does this type of thing at the vet, its a different kind of energy than our normal times of affection. I looovve when I get to cuddle him, so I'm relishing in this amount of affection from him and end up giving into his wanting me to lay with him and pet him (all while the music is still on), but I know that I shouldn't be encouraging this behavior because it seems to be encouraging this new fear in him. I tried settling him in the bedroom (we only live in a one bedroom apartment so you could still hear the music with the door closed) with a new beef bone with meat on it and he would barely look at it. I closed him in the room and came back a few minutes later, and surprisingly found him laying in the bathroom (he barely ever goes in there because he's afraid of the bath!). lol he sounds like he is afraid of lots of things, which isn't the case. He's usually very well adjusted, we live in a city and he does fine with loud noises, cars, people, bikes, etc. I'm just so surprised by this behavior because he's never had any kind of noise anxiety before and I don't know what to do to discourage, or ease the fear/anxiety he seems to be having. Is the music somehow hurting his ears? What can I do to discourage or at least not encourage this behavior? What kind of desensitization should I do? Obviously, I want to be able to listen to music and watch a video anywhere in our place and not have it be an issue. Is this an age thing? I read somewhere about fear phases popping up around this time. If so, how do I deal with this? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!

 

[D'Elle]

How loud are you playing the music? The first thing I would do is put him in the other room and turn down the music so that he cannot hear it. If this makes him calm down, then you can try desensitizing him to the music gradually. Use very clam and slow music,  probably without lyrics, and starting with the music on so low that you can almost not hear it, and giving him treats and playing with him with the music at that almost inaudible level.  You would then very, very gradually increase the level of the music, and when I say gradually I mean take at least two or three weeks to do this, and never take the level up to loud at any time. In that time, don't play any music at any other time when he is in the house. See if you can get him to associate the quiet music with good things like play and treats. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to do this very gradually.

 

[urge to herd]

Yup^. It could possibly be a 'superstitious' reaction. One time when you started playing music, something startled or scared him. Could have been an insect flying by him unexpectedly, or a loud noise when something was dropped, something of that nature. He might be associating the music with that scary/startling thing that happened. Once, it only takes once. It could even have happened in the car, if you were taking him someplace with music on and sirens blaring madly went rushing by.

The slow desensitizing process that D'Elle describes will do the trick. 

Ruth & Gibbs

[ppine]

All of my dogs i the last 50 years have really liked music, especially Grateful Dead music.  They lie in front of the speakers.