Dog no longer barks at thunder
Posted on 20. Jul, 2008 by admin in All Posts, Dogs, Featured
Hello World!
My name is
Ralphie Dog!
I am a Cairn terrier, young at heart, but old in wisdom. My mission in life is to assist other creatures (including the human kind) in knowing and achieving their life’s purpose, which is of course when there isn’t a cat around to chase or postman at the door to bite, or a tasty treat to chew on … but, as I learned today, even older dogs CAN learn new tricks.
You’ve heard that some dogs become quite frightened during a thunder and lightning storm, right? The real scare-D-cats even hide under the bed or in a closet, whimpering, whining, and basically embarrassing man’s best friend, the canine breed.
Now, even though all dogs DO go to heaven, not all of them can be the alpha dog or the leader of the pack, like me, for example. I’d never cower! No fear here! In fact, what I used to do was run around wildly, barking the thunder away! And I’m NOT a quitter, either! I wouldn’t quit running around and barking ferociously at the noise until I succeeded in making the storm STOP making it’s awful racket!
But something new happened during today’s storm that made me choose a different response. No… I wasn’t struck by lightening … if I had been, I wouldn’t be writing this post today… woof!
No, today, I learned that every time the thunder boomed AND I ran around barking, a different, even worse sound occurred that really made me stop and take notice. It was a metallic crashing sound… very unusual… kind of like cheap cymbals banging together.
This awful sound always seemed to originate from the room my Mommy Master was in. Naturally, being the protector and the alpha male, I’d run to her to make sure she was ok, which she was, but instead of yelling at me for trying to bark the thunder away, she would praise me in a calming mommy voice. Woof???
I’d still growl quietly at the thunder and wanted so badly to continue my conditioned response of running around and barking loudly, outdoing the noise of the storm, but this new awful clanging sound happened every time I went off doing the alpha warning.
It really was quite distracting!
I mean, the thunder cracks were uncomfortable to my cute little ears (aren’t they cute?) … but this crashing was ear-shattering!
So I had a choice: I could either stay by my mommy master to protect her from this new horrendous and possibly dangerous noise OR run around barking the thunder away, doing what I always did! What’s an alpha dog to do?
It was all rather confusing.
But I opted to make sure my mommy master was ok. After all, she does fix my breakfast, lunch and dinner, and a few all-the-time snacks, lets me sleep on the real bed, gives me tummy rubs and takes me for walks….not to mention I was getting these awesome calming praises and gentle reassuring strokes which was definitely better that exhausting myself running around barking like crazy AND being yelled at for doing my alpha job!
I still don’t know what was making that noise but it only sounded when I barked and stopped when I was quiet AND my Mommy Master was no longer yelling at me during a thunder storm.
Unfortunately, my Mommy Master has been watching the hit TV show, It’s Me Or The Dog with dog trainer Victoria Stilwell who recently spoke about sound diversion as a behavior-correcting training technique. But I don’t have any bad behaviors! Bad Mommy Master! Woof!
Moral of this dog tale: You CAN make changes in your life!
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