My border collie is becoming increasingly noise sensitive :( he is 8 months old and over the last couple of weeks he has started spooking over certain noises. The first time was when a boy jumped a skateboard off some steps and landed next to him...he panicked (understandable) and didn't calm down until we got home. He has now generalised to worrying over any wheel noises and a lot of other outside noises. He will panic and try to run, luckily his down is good so I have been able to down him and put him back on lead. After speaking to his breeder, who owns both parents and 3 siblings, I have gone with his advice of basically ignoring any silliness and rewarding when he calms down and begins to pay attention to me again and continuing socialising ( at a comfortable distance). I was wondering if anyone had any experience of this or any other tips to overcome it....he is in every other way a confident boy and I hate to see him so freaked :(

You need to desensitise him to the sounds he's become worried about - this means starting at a distance from them or at a volume (if you can get recordings that work) that he doesn't react to, and gradually increasing the volume while rewarding calmness.  Noise phobias are tricky things to sort out but the only real way to get anywhere is very slow desensitisation.  There are myriad sound effects online that you could use to start the process indoors.  I think this preferable as you can control what noise will happen and when, and how loudly, so you can totally engineer the situation for success.

You can countercondition too, when he's not worried or not too badly - basically a noise happens and he gets lots of yummy stuff or a really good game, so the niose starts to become a predictor of good things, rather than a scary thing.

As for ignoring him - your boy is scared.  You need to calm him down - you cannot reinforce fear as you can bad habits, it is an emotion, not a behaviour.  If he is scared, reassure him - if he wants physical contact let him have it.  Your response to his reactions can make all the difference - if my collie panics and I ignore her, she just panics more but if I stroke her slowly and use a low, gentle tone of voice and mutter random things, she will calm down enough that we can move on.  If he does get stressed, walk away - do not try to do any work with him, as you will not get anywhere.  Once stressed, learning is inhibited and continued exposure to a scary noise will only make him worse.

For now I'd also try to give him a couple of week away from any scary noises, at least so far as you can do that - even if it means simply keeping him indoors, so his stress levels have a chance to come back down.  Stress stacks and sticks - each scary noise will add a bit, and it hangs around for a few days after a spike.  So although one noise by itself might not be too much of a problem, many consecutive scary noises will be.

Good luck - it's flipping hard work, but if you can get on the right track now you stand a very good chance of getting him through this - and may I also say thank you, for acting now and not just doing nothing about it as my Phoebe's first owners did until they had a complete wreck of a 4yr old dog!  One thing I've done with her is worked on having her redirect onto a ball - so if she's going to get upset about a noise (indoors, this is), she will run for the nearest tennis ball and squish and rag it.  It's not the whole plan but it's a midpoint and a coping mechanism.  That is for less scary things, such as the nail clippers (on other dogs), my deoderant spray, or me harnessing the other dogs up for a walk (it's not the noise but the activity that winds her up in that situation, but the reaction is the same).

Thank you, I will have a look online for some recordings and try that :) hopefully I will find the noises I need lol...anyone else got a dog scared of church bells???!!! :) With regard to ignoring the behaviour, his breeder had said that he believes that he is going through a fear phase which hasn't been helped by the incident with the skateboard, and that not saying anything but acting confident and jolly would let him see there is nothing to worry about. I do see what you are saying though and my first instinct is to try and calm/ reassure him. He is my trainee obedience dog so is very toy/ food driven but even at a distance his favourite bally wasn't even interesting him. There are a few places we can go where skateboarding/ cycling etc is difficult so i will stick to walking him there for a while to give him chance to settle :) thank you for your suggestions :)

> With regard to ignoring the behaviour, his breeder had said that he believes that he is going through a fear phase which hasn't been helped by the incident with the skateboard, and that not saying anything but acting confident and jolly would let him see there is nothing to worry about.

I agree with the breeders advice. Buster spooked himeslf with a dog-poop bin while on a walk, he was too busy with his nose to the floor to see where he was going and tanked right into the bin - head first, nearly knocking himself off his feet (the bin made a large bang/clatter with the impact). I instinctively reasured him and now, nearly 6 years on, he is extremely suspicious of that poop-bin.

Buster can be too easily spooked by some things in general, I have found that if I completely ignore his reaction, he recovers from the 'spooking' almost imediately. If I forget myself and try to reasure him, he seems to think the thing that spooked him MUST be frightening if I am paying attention to the situation. If he sees me un-phased by anything, he follws my lead.

Buster whent through a fear-period as a 'teenager', in which he was upset by a remote control falling to the floor - it made him afraid of the ROOM that happened in. Ignoring his reaction and working on some distractions & positive associations worked fab :) I just found the blog I had running on it - there may be something useful in there for you.

Thank you very much, will have a read of your blog :) im hoping this is a very short fear phase ( if thats what it is) its funny but I don't remember our other dogs going through them??

My Golden was frightened by skate boards when I was totally unprepared for it. She had been bomb proof before that.  She would have bolted if she had been off lead.  She did not recover at all on that occasion and I had to put her back in the car & go home. I borrowed a skate board from the dog club that I was taking her to and left it in the garden for a few days. Then I started moving it with my foot as I went by and just progressed slowly from there. She was never that frightened of the one in the garden. My friend & I took her to the local park which had a skate board ramp ( early before the kids got there) and we sent our skate board up & down it. The dog was more interested in a passing dog. Never looked back really, but I am aware of the potential for her to react and keep a comfortable distance with her on a lead. She was about 7 months at the time. Just don't push your dog into a situation he is uncomfortable with. I hope he gets over it.

Thanks for replying :) I have a skateboard in the garden (on the grass at the moment so it can't make any noise!) and he is slowly getting better at ignoring it...the first few days he acted like it was going to kill him! Once he is totally confident around it I will try moving it a little bit. Today he has already heard killer wheelie bins while in the garden and spooked at a dog eating elephant in the kiddies play park! The elephant is something he has never bothered with (small rocking thing...no noise) and he has walked past it loads, while kids were on it as well as when no one is there, so I am starting to believe that it is a fear phase which will hopefully pass quickly!! We are away at an obedience show this weekend (his first ever weekend show!!) so not really good timing although at least it will be a break from skateboards!!