How to help your dog who is afraid of noises

If your dog startles, shakes, hides, paces, or otherwise becomes upset about certain noises they hear when at home, you're in the right place. The video below will give you an overview of all the tools we have to help sound-sensitive dogs. 

Here's a short summary of how you can help your dog who is afraid of sounds.  But watch the video for more detail!

1) Talk with your vet or a veterinary behaviorist.  There is evidence that physical pain is sometimes linked to sound sensitivity. There are also medications that can provide relief to dogs who are afraid of noises, whether or not they are experiencing pain.  A veterinary behaviorist is the best-qualified to advise you on this, but you can also ask your primary care vet.

2) Avoid problem sounds.  This isn't always possible, but is usually an option when it comes to electronic sounds at home.  Some of my students who have significantly decreased the stress their dog was experiencing by disconnecting the beeper on their oven, silencing alerts on their washer, or keeping the fan on their heating/cooling system running continuously instead of kicking on and off. 

3) Mask problem sounds.  Depending on the sounds that your dog is afraid of, something like music, an audio book, or brown noise might help.  Check out this blog by Eileen and Dogs on creating a custom sound masking soundtrack for your dog. 

4) Teach your dog "coping" behaviors. Teach your dog behaviors they can do to get good things when they hear the scary noise.  These don't have to be new or complicated behaviors. I like the behavior of "work on a food toy" for sound-sensitive dogs.  Since most dogs will be too stressed to eat if they hear the scary noise at full strength, you'll need to find ways to train around a very low-level version of the sound.  A good trainer can help you with this.

5) Teach your dog to control the sound.  For sounds that you can good control over, like electronic sounds from your phone, for example, you could take the approach of teaching your dog that they can control when the sound happens. If they choose to make the sound happen, they get something good like treats.  For example, Kiki Yablon taught a client dog to go to a mat to make someone activate the ice cube dispenser on their refrigerator.  You can see some of the videos of this training here.

What questions do you have about your fearful, timid, or shut-down dog? Shoot me an email at [email protected] and tell me about your pup.