Brick spazzed out on his walk tonight
He heard fireworks. Not the professional type but just the backyard variety. He started walking faster & faster and panting harder & harder. He tried to start running but I reeled him in and kind of tackled him. I was crouched over him holding him but he was really squirming trying to break free. After a few minutes of that, I lifted him up & started carrying him back home but he's too heavy to do that a long distance plus he was thrashing a bit. I put him down and wrapped my legs around him and my arms around him and held him extremely tightly. He was trying to get away from me. I had to call my mother to come come get us because there was no way I was going to be able to get him home. I was using his training leash (I like that one cuz it's long; it's good for pooping. He won't poop on a short leash) and it's very thin & narrow and the hardware is pretty lame. I was afraid he would break the leash or slip his collar. He would have just taken off running if that happened. Where would he have run to? Who knows? He was just trying to get away from the noise. He was certainly a scared pup tonight. I had sweat pouring off of me after dealing with him. What a handful (2 handfuls). |
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Wow, what a handful.  |
| Is he always afraid of firecrackers or is this new? He has had quite the last few weeks! (OK, you too!) |
| What a rough time! I find the backyard firecrackers scary myself, so it doesn't surprise me that Brick does too. As for the leash, after Mady snapped our leather leash going crazy trying to get the sheep, we bough a much more heavy duty one. I had no idea that she could or would ever lose her brain enough to snap a leash. The power of firecrackers and sheep is strong. I hate to think of our adorable honourary sheepie being so scared. Give him extra hugs from us! |
Wow  Quick thinking on your part, and nicely handled, but that is frightening. Kristine |
| His noise sensitivity began just before Halloween 2006. Before that, noises never phased him. We had a pretty good t-storm just before Halloween '06. My ex had the outside of the house all decorated with halloween stuff. That particular storm was a particularly gusty one. One of the decorations hanging on the outside door was a glow-in-the-dark ghoul's face. The wind had turned it around so it was facing in (looking into the house from outside at human head level) and was banging it against the door. He was staring at that face and just shaking with his tail between his legs all the while the wind was whipping, the thunder was crashing, the lightning was flashing and the rain was pouring down. It must've been too much for him. He was cowering in the corner of the living room for a long while. Ever since then, he freaks out at the sounds of fireworks or thunderstorms. Loud cars, bikes, or airplanes don't bother him. It's gotten so bad that he'll run downstairs and hide in the basement bathroom if it gets particularly windy or the rain starts falling kinda hard. Doesn't need to see the lightning or hear the thunder. I guess he's like a soldier having flashbacks. |
| I ruined our first dog, Button, with balloons trying to keep him from jumping up on the door. Read that in a training book and felt terrible forever after. Did not realize I guess that they can develope such a fear so believe me I tried to make it up to him every storm. We still have the nativity set that he almost destroyed during one of worse ones. Believe me never again but I was ignorant at the time. |
ICH wrote: I ruined our first dog, Button, with balloons trying to keep him from jumping up on the door. Read that in a training book and felt terrible forever after. Did not realize I guess that they can develope such a fear so believe me I tried to make it up to him every storm. We still have the nativity set that he almost destroyed during one of worse ones. Believe me never again but I was ignorant at the time. Don't beat yourself up. There is a genetic predisposition to noise sensitivity. If not the balloons, something else would have triggered it. It's the reason two dogs can have the same experiences, and for one it can be traumatic and set off similar reactions down the line, while the other bounces back quite quickly and simply moves on. My first OES was noise sensitive, and it didn't become obvious until she was a bit older. The hard part is how to deal with it in sticky situations like what Mark experienced. Most dogs would react to fireworks in that situation, don't get me wrong. But only some dogs will be so overloaded that the flight response takes over completely and you can't seem to get through to them on any level. They're so afraid they're not mentally "there". Some people work hard to desensitize dogs and that can work to varying extents, but the hard part is being able to control the dog's environment to the extent that they aren't overloaded while you're going through the process and you can't really control things like thunderstorms or other people setting off fireworks. Kristine |
| Times like that are terrible. At least Mark was strong enough and knowledgable enough to be able to control the situation, not everyone could. We never tried to desensitize Button; just tried to make sure he felt as safe as he could under the circumstances. |
| What a scary situation for you and Brick! Our first sheepie was noise sensitive and I believe it started when a car backfired when we were out in our yard playing ball with him. After that thunderstorms--firecrackers and fireworks really scared him. Glad you were strong enough to hold him and that your Mom could come pick you up. |
| The same thing happened to me the other night. I was walking both sheepies and Lizzy, who hates loud noises, and we live near Quantico Marine base and training facility and there are always loud booms that rattle out house. She spazzed out and I had to take her home. We have found if we go to watch the fire works in DC we better take her rather than leave her and expose her to neighborhood back yard fireworks. They are the worst. The DC fireworks are so far away the booms and crackles are not very loud and she will sit with us. Bentley is the most relaxed sheepdog I have ever known. If the door bell rings Lizzy barks and runs to the door and Bentley saunters over as if to say, "I guess there is someone at the door, perhaps I should say hello." He is funny. |
| I'm sorry to hear Brick is showing a sensitivity to loud firecracker noice. For the first few years that we had Violet, storms never seem to bother her. She went through 4 Hurricanes with us, but the thunder nor lightening seemed to bother her until we moved to a house in a gated community on a lake. When Violet was younger, really from the day we adopted her from the rescue, we had delt with yeasty ears. I cleaned her ears each day and took her many times to the Vet and got treatment until they finally put her on a different med, which then cleared her ears up and we hadn't had problems since then...I digress. Anyway, so all the houses in the subdivision are close together and built from concrete block. We were also on a lake...We moved in just before the 4th of July and, of course, everyone was doing firecrackers at night. Violet wouldn't go outside to go potty. She was afraid to go out the doggy door. I finally figured out why. Then the storms would come in and I think, because the houses were so close and the lake, that the sound just vibrated off from everything. That was in June of 2008. We no longer live there, we are in the country, but everytime a storm blows in Violet comes looking for me and trys to get me to go in my bedroom with her so she can lay between my dresser/nightstand with the tv on. The Aussies are now following Violet as well. This morning when the shuttle came home, the dogs were all barking. At first I thought someone was trying to come in the front of the house until I remembered that the shuttle came home. |
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