Hi All,

Roxy's first season started on the 4th and after reading as much as I can about how they can go, I was wondering if anyone else had experience of thier girls turning into right scaredy-cats??!

Roxy is currently jumping at bin bags (left out for the bin man), the radiator airer, and she's even nervy if the back door isn't fully open when she tries to go back into the house. Usually she just barges through without a second thought.

Also, she's was really nervy of the builder next door today where she wasn't yesterday...

I'm trying to be matter of fact, and tell her 'not to be so silly', should I totally ignore it though? Will it pass, and this isn't anything permanent is it? She's usually a bouncy confident so and so normally....

Thanks

Karen

Hi Karen
I haven't posted for a while, but your post struck a chord. Since Tansy's first season she has also become a scaredy cat. She had it at just over 8 months old and she is now one, and unfortunately, if anything, she has got worse!! I have no idea if this was down to hormonal changes and I am certainly no expert. Tansy was speyed nearly a month ago now, and I thought it might help but it hasn't.
She used to jump at everyone and anyone, wanting a fuss...now she tries to choke herself in an attempt to escape from people, acting REALLY scared. She is scared now of the hoover, broom, being groomed, her harness, the shopping trolley, water, lively dogs. Also, bizarrely, she will refuse to move if anyone is walking behind her, no matter how far away.
She is terrified of motor bikes, which is a real pain because we live on a main road!! She won't stay in the garden on her own so we have to wait while she has a wee.
I have to say that I am at my wits end. We just ignore this fearful behaviour, so she doesn't associate it with a fuss.
I sincerely hope your pup is just going through a phase. I hope Tansy is too!! Either way, at least you are not going through it on your own :-)

I am no expert but it might be an "age" thing. As she has just had her first season I am assuming she is quite young. I have a 1 year old GR dog ( so I know it's not a season causing the problem :D ) and he has just started to become wary of things that he was previously ok with.

Today I was walking him off lead in the woods miles away from anywhere and we came across a supermarket trolley in the middle of the woods. He wouldn't go anywhere near it so eventually I just walked past it and stopped to call him when I was about 30 feet beyond it. He kept looking at me and starting towards it but would run back away from it as soon as he got close to it. I walked a bit further and called him again and he made a huge detour through all the brambles so he didn't have to go directly past it.

Normally he wouldn't have been bothered at all by it so I am thinking it might just be another stage he is going through.

I'm no expert either and have more experience with dogs than I do with bitches, But certainly, since Nips moved beyond puppyhood into the twilight zone that is doggy adolescence, he's had occasional "spook outs". All of which involve everyday things he's been perfectly comfortable with since 8 weeks of age. Only this week he decided that the washing machine was going to eat him on his way out to the garden and approached the back door by virtually pinning himself to the walls. On his way back in he ignored the washing machine and has been treating it with his normal disinterest ever since.

I realise that his occasional moments of inexplicable scariness are as nothing compared to what Fluff76 and Tansy's Mum are going through but there does seem to be some sort of hormonal connection.