Our 7 month male Gsd goes mad when I get the hoover out ,oh and the mop, broom,  ironing board and the washing line pole!! He barks continuously and wont leave them alone whilst they are moving, its got to the point where I put him in the car or the garden with a distraction such as a bone whilst i do some housework (which I hate!!) in peace. We have had him since he was 8 weeks old. i have tried leaving the hoover out for him to investigate but to no avail.
Any advice or ideas would be very much appreciated.

Hi
I had the same problem, also with the lawnmower, the coins in the jar did the trick, only had to do it once
and it did'nt frighten her at all but she never did it again.
Hope this helps.

Has he always done this or is it a new behaviour?

We got our older dog as a rescue when she was 2 and she was terrified of the hoover, brooms, brushes, watering cans, grooming stuff etc - in fact anything we picked up seemed to scare her.  We eventually got her over it by associating nice things with each item which seemed to scare her - eg giving her a treat whenever we approached her with the grooming stuff, playing with a toy with her while the hoovering was being done etc.  It took several months but now she is completely relaxed with everything.

I don't know if this would help with your GSD as it may not be a case of him being scared, but any form of treat or distraction may help.

You could always give up on doing the housework of course.......!

I did give up on the housework, any excuse, I dont know what happened but after the odd "leave it" and/or putting him in another room, he just lost interest by the time he was about a year. Now i have to do the housework again and he just lies there watching.

It has taken till 9 months old to get my dog to leave the hoover alone.... I used to have to crate him when it came out as he would be in a complete barking frenzy bowing at it and lifting it off the floor:rolleyes:.  He is now pretty good, just tends to watch now. As for the washing line, I gave up on that last year and have been using a tumble drier :rolleyes: but hopefully I will be able to re introduce the washing line this summer without having teeth marks in my favourite undies :-D   Not sure how to tackle it yet so no advice yet, but will let you know if I find something. If you have a crate though, do try him in the crate whilst hoovering as he will still see and hear it, but not get to it and eventually the novelty should wear off :-)

It may depend on how the dog perceives the hoover, but mine used to "attack" it when a pup and i redirected her onto her toy and played with her whilst I hoovered so that in time she saw the hoover coming out as play time - but the play was controlled so that she understood it was up to me when I threw the funball ;)

I also found  a very happy "ooh look what we are doing, hoovering, isn't that fun!" type voice helps  lots :D
Now she comes to me, and actually asks for me to "hoover" her with the attachment, it's so funny. I love dogs :P

Lindsay
x

Mine are also hoover attackers, and I have tried all sorts of distraction but the excitement of the hoover far outweighs anything else.  So now they are shut in another room where they still bark frantically to get to it and then swapped into another room when I want to do that one.

Hello

I just have some success with my 7.5 month old springer in that matter.  I also  started leaving her in the car after coming home from a walk in order to do the hoovering and wet washing of the kitchen floor quickly.  But I wasn't happy with that and thought that's not good enough.  So I got out a handful of little treats and when she barked I said 'Ah-Ah' and tossed her a treat when she was quiet.  So now I always toss her a treat when she keeps quiet (I throw the treat behind me) and I'm able to lenghten the time when to treat her.  When she sees me getting the hoover out, she licks her lips now.  When I mop the kitchen floor, I put her into a sit-stay and she waits till I'm finished I treat her.  It works very well with my puppy.  At the beginning I had to treat her quiet times a lot, every 3 seconds or so, but now I can wait 10 seconds and need much less treats.
So I continue with this method.

Bagpipe

My nearly 8 month old used to attack all floor cleaning devices! Which I put down to the rarity of them coming out, to be honest!!! However, I just told him not to be an eejit and carried on as normal on the grounds that he'd have to like it or lump it and nowadays he can't be bothered to chase brushes - although he's very partial to skidding around scattering the sweepings up pile. As for the hoover, he just glowers at it and takes himself off to another room.

I used to crate my dog when the hoover came out.  As for the ironing board she was terrified of it and yep she still attacks the broom but I have to admit we do have a game with it and now she is older I can tell her "enough" and she stops. 

I have tried treats, ranging from fresh liver and chicken  nice juicy marrowbones, down to thier favourite jerkys, but they find the hoover so much more interesting than even those
I also can't carry on hoovering and ignoring them as they have hold of the hoover head and actually lift it in the air.  So that is why they are now shut firmly in another room where they bark frantically and leap at the doors as soon as the hoover starts up till it stops,  but hopefully one day when they are old and grey they will get bored, trouble is they are only 13months and 8 months at the moment LOL

Bev

Thank you all for your replies, it makes me feel better Im not alone!!
My pup has always behaved like this towards the hoover etc.but it sounds worse as he gets older and louder! I do at times crate him whilst i do the housework (when i think i can bear the noise!)but he goes beserk especially when he can see the mop or hoover so Im not sure if this is the right thing to do??
Perhaps if im lucky he will grow out of it.

He will grow out of it, well most do. 

All mine have been mop, hoover, brush attackers, its just fun.  When all 7 puppies where on the ground they all wanted to play.  Now I am back to two mad pups and even the older on, 6 months loves to pick up the hoover head.  Personally I would rather they were excited by it than frightened by it.  The other dogs gave up the chase at about 12 months. 

Oops forgot to say, yes I crate them while I hoover any area they are in and they watch it intently.  The barking is slowing now and they give up after a couple of minutes.

Not sure if this is any help but it is how I cured mine of going for the hoover all the time.
First I put the dog on a lead, then I get the Hoover out, did not plug it in at all, just very slowly moved it a little (like I was going to Hoover the carpet) Dog started to bark, I gently pulled the lead to get dog at the side of me, and said NO and SIT, when dog sat treat was given.
I then waited a couple of hourse and did the same thing agin, moving the Hoover a little more and a little faster, Same thing, then after a couple of days did this with the Hoover plugged in and running. It takes a few weeks but at the end of about 6 weeks I could Hoover with no problems and no dog on the lead either. Think its just a habit with most of them to attack the flipping Hoover, and now I have a Kirby which is large and makes a lot of noise and the dogs just ignore it. Hope that helps you.