New Anxiety
We have a 5 year old female Shiba who we adopted this past December from a shelter. The past few weeks she has developed a fear of electronic noises. Started out with the toaster, then the microwave beeping, last night the cell phone ring or text tones set her off. She puts her tail between her legs, ears down and runs to hide in her crate. She will even stop eating if anyof these noises occurs. This is all acute and we cannot attribute any situation in our home that may have triggered this. She showed no signs of this kind of anxiety at anytime before. Thoughts? Suggestions. This seems beyond just Shiba behavior. Thanks!!
Comments
To start, I would talk to your vet. Sudden and significant behavioral changes like that can sometimes be a result of a medical issue. It's best to rule those out first.
Once you have ruled those out, I'd try some classical conditioning. Put her in her crate with a really yummy item (like a raw meaty bone), and then call your cell phone from the other room. Keep doing this, moving slightly closer every time until you see a slight reaction from her, then back off. You want her to learn to associate the sound of your cell phone, microwave, etc. with the positives of the bone.
A third option would be to speak with a certified veterinary behaviorist. I suspect they'll give you similar exercises to the ones I just described. They may also recommend an anti-anxiety medication like reconcile (prozac for dogs) which will help reduce the extremity of her reactions and enable your training to have a bigger effect. I used reconcile successfully with my high anxiety dog in combination with a strict training routine. It wasn't my first choice, but it was the most successful strategy for our situation.
Good luck, and keep us updated!
I would call the vet and get a wellness checkup.
She was at groomer today too and did fine but still very anxious over microwave beeps and cell phone beeps. Have cellphones on mute now. She was eating her dinner yesterday and I activated the timer on the microwave and with the first key beep she suddenly stopped eating midway and walk with her tail between her legs into bedroom and in her crate. She doesnt like marrow bone so I tried her favorite treat and she turned it down. It has come on so abruptly and acutely. We already work with a behaviorist for her past anxiety issues which involved barking not shirking away. I have a message out to her regarding this new behavior. Thanks
You've already had some good recommendations, and you're obviously on the right track with trying meds and working with a behavioralist. I'll add this: you may need to try a variety of different meds and different things for her anxiety. I had very bad luck with Prozac. Bel became MORE fearful (which was hard to believe given how bad she was) with it, and in addition to being more scared, she was more aggressive (her other problem) and also seemed to get stuck, for lack of better word. she'd just stop somewhere and stare. We believe Bel has a seizure disorder of some sort (perhaps from a tumor, perhaps not), so she's done the wierd staring thing before, but this was longer and more pronounced. We stopped prozac.
We also had no good luck with xanax or valium. We've ended up with a mixture of phenobarbital for seizures, plus non drug things like melatonin and a thundershirt. In cases of extreme fearfulness I use Acepromazine. I know it's not recommended for this, as it sedates but doesn't lessen anxiety, but in extreme cases, it is better than having her go crazy, and it's actually worked to lessen her fear (she often just goes to sleep during thunderstorms now, whether she's had the ace or not). I recently found out that acepromazine is not a sedative as I'd long thought, but is related to human anti-psychotic drugs. Who knows, perhaps, that's why it works with my crazy girl. (I'm joking, but I sometimes do wonder)
As I've had to go through quite a few of these sorts of drugs myself to find one that worked (in my case welbutrin was literally a life saver), and I've struggled to find something to work for my dog, I realize that individual reactions vary wildly with these drugs, and if one doesn't work, try another. It may be that prozac is not going to work for her. Perhaps this is a side effect, or perhaps it's just not able to truly combat her anxiety.
And btw, my girl seems to randomly develop new phobias. She seems ok with thunder now, but wind is scary. Lately, the sound of dishes rattling scares her. She gets scared as it gets dark. I have no idea why she is suddenly afraid of something new, but I do notice most of her phobias relate to sound. I have read that epileptic dogs can have aural (as well as visual) hallucinations, and as she has had seizures, we know she is epileptic. Perhaps she also hears or sees things that are not there. I just don't know.
Anxiety is a really difficult issue. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, and I hope you're able to find a solution.
But the fear of loud electronic noises could very well be associated with the ear infection. Electronic noises are usually fairly high pitched and can be painful to a dog with an inflamed ear.
If that is not the case, then you may want to work with a behaviourist to help condition her to those types of noises.