# My boy is becoming nervous with loud noises



## jburgi (Jul 3, 2016)

So I am in the very beginning process of training my spoo to be my service dog. Over the past few days my boy has started becoming very fearful with loud unfamiliar sounds. I am so nervous we are going to fail our service dog training before we can even begin. What can I do to get him more comfortable with loud and/or unfamiliar sounds? I want to keep introducing him to everything I possibly can, but I am worried I will do it wrong and make it worse. We have our 1st class with the obedience trainer tomorrow, so I plan on bombarding her with tons of questions. I am just so worried that this type of fear signals is going to eliminate him from his service dog training. I want to do EVERYTHING I can to give him the best possible chances of success. Any suggestions??? Advice on what to ask the trainer?? Thanks so much for all of your advice everyone! 

-Jessica


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

How old is he? The idea of pups going through "fear periods" is no longer entirely accepted, but most of us have noticed that our youngsters do have times when they get more anxious about various things, especially new things, as they are growing up. The more they have been exposed to and had good experiences of lots of new stuff when very young and enthusiastic about novelty, the easier it is for them to cope with new stuff as they get older, of course. Does he bounce back into cheerfulness quickly, or continue to show signs of anxiety? Is he happy to approach new objects if you go ahead, or still hang back from them?

I am sure your trainer will advise you, but with Poppy, who I swear had enough fear periods for a whole litter, I did the following:
Stay calm, upbeat and matter of fact. Oh, a loud noise - that was interesting but no big deal. Now let's go and do something fun.
Never, ever force the dog to "face his fears" or flood him with the scary thing. Let him decide the safe distance.
Be the source of safety and reassurance - there is an excellent article here Rescue Me! (Part 1) - eileenanddogseileenanddogs on why reassurance does not reinforce fear.
Remember this is probably a puppy thing - are you still scared of the things that frightened you when you were a small child? He is learning what is genuinely to be avoided, and what can safely be ignored, and will do so with your help.

If noise continues to be an issue, there are lots of CDs and downloads that help you to accustom your dog to them, starting very softly and building up slowly (although I still haven't found one that works for Poppy and Smoke alarms!).


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

What kinds of noises are troubling to your pup?

I agree with fjm about trying to not over react to his responses. Be upbeat and cheerful. Tell him he is brave when he relaxes quickly after a startle. If you know a loud noise (like thunder) is about to ensue play some games with him to help him ignore the noise. You can also gauge how strong his stress is by seeing if he will take a treat and eat it. A dog that is so stressed that it won't play and/or won't eat a treat is over the threshold and is really in trouble with those stimuli, but if the dog will play, eat treats and respond to commands for simple behaviors that it knows well (not things you are still teaching) then it will be easy to help the dog outgrow his concerns over the noise.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I did the calm investigation technique with Buck and I did a happy "Yay! It's the UPS truck!" Not excited enough to amp him up, but happy about the cause which I always named. He is not afraid of fireworks, lightening nor all the activity of a house being built next door. For the construction I did a generic cheer of "They're working!" So many new sights and sounds for a puppy to get used to. Good luck!


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## FireStorm (Nov 9, 2013)

We started working on loud noises with Hans as a puppy because we needed him to get used to gunfire. We started with clapping, first soft clapping, then loud clapping. Then we popped bubble wrap, popped those shipping air packs, popped balloons (he loves balloons, because he can't figure out how they disappear), then banging blocks of wood, starter pistols, then gunfire. 

We would just make the noises randomly throughout the day, but usually when he was focused on something else like doing tricks he knew, doing basic commands he knew, or playing (in other words, we didn't sneak up and startle him while he was sleeping or anything). We stayed at each noise level until he was totally relaxed about it. We never paired the loud noises with treats or other rewards because we wanted him to accept them as a non event rather than anticipate anything in particular, but you could use treats I'm sure.

Our goal was specifically acclimation to gunfire, but it has carried over and he's generally pretty accepting of loud noises.


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