monty is nearly 11 months old and he's suddenly become terrified of man hole covers! not all of them, but a great big one down out road and the ones with the long thin holes in them. he hasn't had an accident with one and he can't have fallen down a gap because that's impossible :D when ever we go past one he pulls for his life and even if we put a treat on one he won't get it. any idea why he's suddenly scared of them???

He may just be going through a fear stage ..entirely normal in development :) Just try to ignore the behaviour and he should grow out of it. Walk him past as many manhole covers as you can without looking at him or talking to him, treat it as part of his normal walk :)

Simple really - the feel of a manhole cover is different to the rest of the ground he is walking on!

Just keep walking him over them, don't make a fuss, if he wants to walk round it, let him, just keep passing them, then get him running, and RUN him over one - he'll conquer his fear of the unknown that way - many many moons ago, one of our labs was like this - we got him over it by pegging out a "run" for him (and this was on a public pavement mind you) making atunnel that he had to run through - then with my sister standing up at one end jumping up and down and acting like an absolute lunatic :D - we sent him through this "tunnel.   He rushed to her - didn't even realise he was over the manhole cover - so she sent him back down to me - again over it.  We played with him for an hour or so like this - never had any more problems with him and manhole covers after that!

Margot

:D at Margot

>never had any more problems with him and manhole covers after that<

Just the men in the little grey vans ...................

Teri :P

We thought we were very resourceful - this was a "gunshy" gundog, frightened of his own shadow, so between my 2 sisters (9 & 11) and me (13) - we trained this dog to a really good level!!   Neighbours just thought we were doing something mad, as usual, so apart from a few comments to our mother about "those girls of yours and that dog of theirs" never had any problems :D :D

Margot