I’ll be working on a post about social status and dog training this week, keep your eyes peeled. Meanwhile, something happened on Saturday that related to our discussion about fears . . .
I mentioned last week that Willie has become fearful of being in the bedroom with me at night. He is better, although he still leaves the room when I get into bed, but he is not slinking out anymore as if he saw monsters sitting on my shoulder. (And yes, by the way, it appears that whatever scared him is associated with me–all of his tongue flicking and slinking was directed toward me, but only once I get into bed. The issue seems to be specific to Trisha + Bed = Scary. (Oh lordy, one could construct a lot of jokes out of that. Sigh.) Speaking of unexplained fears, here’s an explained one that might shed a little light on the ones we can’t figure out.
On Saturday a dear friend came to visit from northern Wisconsin, and after driving 4 hours let her Akbash, her Golden Retriever and a Lab she is babysitting out of the car to relive themselves. Unbeknownst to us, my cat Sushi was sitting on the porch, and the Akbash and GR took one look at her and began lure coursing with her as the rabbit. Luckily she was only about 30 yards from a tree, and she got up it when the dogs were only a few feet away. She must have climbed 25 feet up, but got herself down within a few minutes once it was safe. (We didn’t see her come down, we were busy rounding up loose dogs at that point.) We found her soon after, shaken up and with what looked like a minor eye injury, but otherwise still intact. However, she clearly had been terrified, and for the next 48 hours she panicked every time she saw Willie. Now, Willie had been in the house, and had no part in chasing her. But he’s a dog, and apparently that was enough to set her off.
Fears are like that: When we, or any mammal, is truly frightened, the change in neurochemistry in our brains creates a state of hyper awareness. It is as if the brain is saying “I need to pay attention to everything, because I don’t know yet what it was that related to the danger, so I’ll take it all in and sort it out later.” In the famous story told in all animal behavior classes, an entomologist who was struck by a car in a pedestrian cross walk can still tell you the species identification of all the insects plastered onto the grill of the vehicle that hit him. Apparently he’s never felt the same way about moths again. The downside of this hyper awareness is that we can develop conditioned fears to things that had nothing to do with the actual trauma or injury. In Sushi’s case, it made some sense: Willie wasn’t anywhere near her when she was being chased, but he is a dog after all. But the association can be illogical and meaningless, and still have tremendous power. We can get nervous when we hear the song that was playing on the radio when we had a car accident, or our dogs can associate us with something that happened in our presence that had nothing to do with what scared them. But we were there, and sometimes that’s enough.
As readers have wisely commented, it could be related to smells (I think that is often over looked in dogs, because we as a species are so oblivious to scents), or sounds that we can’t hear ourselves. I think it often has to do with pain; I’ve seen many clients whose dogs had an abrupt injury and associated their owners or another dog with it. I also wonder about barometric pressure, stray voltage (I had a case of “Separation Anxiety” that turned out to relate to a huge power surge by a nearby power generating plant right next door) and who knows what else. Temple Grandin talks about a horse afraid of anyone with a black hat on, because the man who beat her wore a black hat. I’ve had clients whose dogs were afraid of anyone who smelled like pepperoni (abusive pizza delivery man), anyone with bushy, blond hair (who knows why!), and Hereford cows (not Holsteins) because the dog was looking at Herefords when he got hit by an electric fence. Sometimes we can figure out the association, sometimes we can’t, but it does help a bit to remember that the association is often illogical.
Meanwhile, back in the barn: Lambs lambs lambs. On Saturday morning, Truffles had triplets. She’s a 4 year old ewe who has always had 2 great lambs every year, but this time she had triplets, 3 little lambs, with 2 of them marked like Border Collies. Her cousin Snickers looked like she would lamb too, having an udder that blew up like a balloon on Saturday morning, and she became less and less interested in food as the day went on. Sunday morning it was clear she’d been digging, a sign of early labor, and she even left a rare chance at fresh grass to run back into the barn as if her babies were imminent. But, then . . . nothing. Hour after hour, nothing. Sunday morning it was also clear that Truffles wasn’t producing any milk. Her lambs were hunched and cold, and her bag was hard as a rock. Thus, much of Sunday was phone calls to the vet, visits to pick up goat milk, teaching the lambs to nurse out of a bottle, picking up medicine at the vet clinic, herding the flock with older lambs onto the front lawn for their first fresh grass in weeks, herding them back into the barn and taking the lambless sheep onto the front lawn (pasture isn’t grown up enough, needs to be rested), massaging Truffles’ bag with warm towels, feeding the lambs every few hours . . . (Don’t take any of this as a complaint. Except the worrying part, I love lambing season and was so grateful that I was home and not needing to work most of the weekend!)
Late Sunday afternoon, just when I was getting truly worried about Snickers and her blank-eyed, listless look and lack of any signs of labor, Jim, bless him, drove to the vet clinic to get oral calcium that might help her along. I went into the barn to do another round of cleaning and feeding, and there were 3 little lambs with fat, full bellies, all standing beside Snickers. She had had them all in just minutes, cleaned them up and got all 3 fed in about a half an hour. This morning Dorothy (finally!) had twins, 2 lovely little boys (but wouldn’t you know that’s who I wanted to keep a ewe lamb from, she is my best ewe hands down….), one white and one grey & white. That’s 17 lambs out of 7 ewes. Holy moley. And there is one more to go, Explodo Ewe Barbie. Still no milk from Truffles though. She doesn’t have mastitis, and I actually wish she did. Then I could give her antibiotics and milk her out and use warm compresses and probably pull, her udder and her lambs through. But this hard bag is worse–the bag is full of fluid and the ducts are blocked, and the milk can’t get through. It might resolve in another few days and it might not. If it does, she still might not be able to provide enough milk, even for twins much less triplets. Looks like I’ll be constructing a self feeder soon.
Here are some of the older lambs, with the front runner impersonating a Border Collie.
Here are the 9 older lambs (there are 8 others in the barn), checking out Willie. Notice that Lady Godiva, whose lambs are the two in the front on your left, has come over to lure her babies away from the wolf lying in the dirt. She came a little closer, nickered, and her black lamb followed her away. The black and white ewe lamb ignored her completely, and continued to check out Willie, who bless him, stayed quiet and calm throughout.
KathiD says
So interesting about the fears. The other night, my Brooklyn seemed to have an anxiety attack halfway through a 4-hour car trip, although she’s usually fine in the car. She panted heavily and shivered. I thought she might be getting nauseated, but she never vomited, and after an hour and a half, and being moved to my lap, she calmed down and has been fine ever since. I wonder if the car will scare her next time?
Mary says
I have a cattle dog mix who has an assortment of fears, some more unusual than others. She is afraid of flies and will run into the darkest room she can find to avoid them and won’t come out until I can “prove” to her that it’s gone. She is afraid of inanimate objects that appear to move on their own. For example if I ball up a plastic bag and put it on the table she’ll stare at it, and when it starts to unfurl, she runs. Forget it if I open a window and the curtains blow in the breeze…she’s outta there. I sometimes believe she hallucinates, as she will be resting quietly on the couch and suddenly bolt off of it to the other side of the room staring back at where she came from as if she saw something trying to “get” her.
She is afraid of any new indoor environment until she has been exposed to it repeatedly for quite some time. She fears strangers. It’s ironic, but she doesn’t fear things I would think she would, like thunder and other loud noises.
Obedience training has worked wonders for her and her favorite thing is coming to class to be the “demo” dog. No one realizes she has any fear issues when she is working. She turns her full focus to the work and is very accurate and precise. It helps that she has come to LOVE treats. When I first adopted her she seemed to be in a semiferal state, and was afraid to eat ANYTHING unfamiliar. She was afraid of the clicker, afraid of the target stick etc… I had to go so slowly and use such high value food rewards that I wondered if she would ever get better. Now she has no fear of that equipment and would eat lint out of my pocket at this point, she is so into what she’s doing.
I just take her fears in stride, and she seems not to be distressed for long periods of time, so I don’t think her quality of life is decreased. Selfishly, I wish she didn’t have the fears she does because she would have made a sensational competition obedience dog. I just couldn’t justify putting her through the stress of all of those new environments she would have to deal with. We just stick to the local dog obedience club that she’s familiar with. She has a great time, and so do I.
Her nickname is “Chickie Dog” and it is meant with affection not ridicule 😉
lorena says
Do you think the dog is afraid of an alarm clock? or new mirror? I’ve seen dogs baffled by their own reflection in a mirror, or hearing coyotes outside? Just trying to brainstorm for you, good luck
Wild Dingo says
I wonder if you talked or had a nightmare one night while sleeping and it woke him up?
When we adopted our Siberian at 1 year’s old (she’s over 2.5 now), she was “ok” with both my husband and me. sibes tend to be shy at first and she was no different than most sibes this way. she was VERY shy. she was closer to me but not exactly afraid of my husband. in fact, he tended to her stitches from her spaying and kept them clean, which meant she had to be belly up for him. shortly after being here and still settling in, something happened and we don’t know what. we “think” it could have been from us moving our furniture around and it scared her so much she ran into a wall. ever since then, she was terrified of my husband. it also didn’t help that our GSD mix (kind of a bully but the kind that if you stand up to him as a dog or as a human, he caves instantly and becomes your buddy), well, he glued onto my husband and tried to own him. so my sibe was not only afraid of my husband but my GSD mix would send her signals on when she could enter a room or not, which i did not allow him to continue (I’d interrupt with voice and redirect for praise), but he would try for a long time. at one point, she would extradite herself from the house and watch us in the living room from outside. it was so sad. i tried to force her in on leash, i pulled her in (ya, i know, not a smart move). All the food in the world didn’t help her with my husband. It took one thing and one thing alone: training. My husband gave up his saturday mornings to spend an a few hours (drive plus class) with her in an obedience class. I had already trained her and she KNEW all the basics, heel, down, stay, come, sit/down at distance, moving downs etc. she was even a therapy dog. but in order to bond with her, my husband went through the same course (not beginner, but advanced agility and advanced obedience) with her. The first time he had to recall her, it was almost so funny and sad at the same time. i watched as she ran AWAY from him to the gate and tried desperately to get to me outside the gate watching. The trainers worked several months with her and him. One time, i was on the field at the same time as her and my husband, assisting the trainers with restrained recalls (holding a dog), when my husband called my sibe from another trainer holding her. She ignored him and came over to me in the MOST PERFECT heel position i’d ever seen her, looking straight into my eyes. I wanted so badly to reward that beautiful move, but i couldn’t since my husband recalled her. Sigh. Eventually my husband and my Siberian became DEMONSTRATORS for a perfect recall and even perfect off leash heeling and moving downs. it took a lot of time, but they bonded. And though she now kisses him and goes to him willingly, at times at night in the living room, even if my GSD mix is in bed upstairs, if my husband gets up to get a drink or even to say hello to her and walks to her, she gets up and runs away to a corner and slinks into the corner cowering a bit. It’s a conditioned response, and one that I keep telling him that he is reinforcing by giving her attention and petting her (she loves attention). so she runs away to a corner and cowers and he goes to her and pets her. Even though she will walk with him and go to him when he calls her, willingly for praise or food, she still does this. and it’s mainly i believe from his conditioning it with attention. My husband thinks its funny and laughs (good heartedly and tongue in cheek, not sarcastically) about it. and he’s a typical anthropormorphic guy who just wants to console the scared cowering dog. but if he’d just ignore the behavior and instead call her to him I’m almost certain we could extinguish it. but his OWN behavior and habits prevent him from doing it. All in all, they have a decent relationship and a 100 times better than last year so I’ll take what i can get. but it’s is so obvious what is happening.
And I have to laugh because when we go walking at a tree farm where we can safely let them off-leash, we practice recalls and keep the dogs close to us so not to stray too far, she recalls BETTER to him than to me (much more reliably), though i’m bonded closer to her than he is. go figure. he’s done MORE training with her than i have though. so sometimes, fear is conditioned and i think can be separate from how they actually feel about you or from typical behaviors such as trained obedience behaviors.
sigh. wish I could train my husband as well as I’ve trained my dogs. Then maybe my Sibe wouldn’t show that weird fear around him still!
Wild Dingo says
ps. WONDERFUL lamb photos! they are adorable. Love the stalker Will too!
Jennifer Hamilton says
Wow….so beautiful and so much work…all at the same time. Congratulations and don’t forget to put your feet up for a minute or two!
Alexandra says
Poor Sushi! I am glad she is basically ok, though.
Thanks for the lamb pictures; they are very cute (and tasty, haha)!
Amanda & the mutts says
Mary’s story of “Chickie Dog” is a carbon copy of my Bailey.
Instead of flies, his issue is primarily with anything that buzzes like a bee as a result of a traumatic encounter my dogs and I had with some very aggressive bees (wasps, yellow jackets, I don’t even know) in our back yard 2 years ago. Just thinking about it even gets MY heart racing. Bailey IS afraid of thunder storms, though, and I can even get him to work through them by focusing on obedience tasks in a familiar place.
Obedience work, in my opinion, is the single most important factor in his ability to become a “normal” confident dog today. The attention he would get from other people lit him up like a Christmas tree. “I wish MY dog would listen as well as you do” was pure music to his ears.
I like to think his happiness and confidence take the place of the “titles” we could never earn as a result of his inability to perform in new/strange places.
Now, any time I have a person who asks me about how to help a dog with anxiety/fear issues, I ALWAYS recommend finding something they are good at and using it as an opportunity to let them shine as much and as often as possible.
Holly says
love the photos of the lambs. How do you fix blocked teats? What causes that?
Fears are strange bedfellows. I know the cause(s) of Conners issues and they are legit even if he did bring them on himself. Having been very afraid myself several times I have a deep sympathy for animals who probably have less ability to see what caused it and how to avoid or deal with them.
Frances says
I love the idea of border collie lambs! I’m following the discussion about fearful dogs with interest, too, as Poppy has taken a lot of work to relax her around dogs, people and things in general. When I first got her I worried about her bonding with me first, rather than Sophy my young papillon. Now I worry that she is too closely bonded to me, and that I should be doing more work on getting her happy to be left alone. Sigh! Seems the more you know, the more there is to agonise over! This has become my favourite blog by far – I really appreciate the frequency and regularity with which it is update, and the sensible, insightful comments.
Jane says
Congratulations on the lambs!
I have a question on the dominance theme and related to wondering how to best introduce a new dog to the current population. I’ve just gotten a 1 1/2 yr old Jack Russell female (through rescue) and have brought her into the house with my 11 yr old male JRT, a 4 yr old BC female and an 11 yr old BC/ACD female. I’ve seen you mention in your writings that you don’t allow aggressive behavior between dogs and I wonder how to deal with the growling from my older male. I do have your booklet on living with a pack and will re-read it but I’m trying to respect that a growl is a warning and if I squelch that, I may end up with a more serious outcome. No one is being really aggressive right now. My male has basically decided that one of the chairs is “his” and the front seat of the car is “his” and he gives a warning growl when she approaches. If she persists, he snaps at her.
I know you’re planning on getting Will a new buddy at some point so I hope that along with the dominance issue, this is a topic you might address in the future. Thanks!
Keli says
I have noticed this hyper awareness that you explained. After the thunderstorms last Monday and Tuesday my dogs are on high alert. Every noise gets them to suddenly sit up and listen. Is that thunder (at least that is what I think – they think)? I feel bad because it seems like they are living in a constant state of arrousal. This may be the year that I may have to talk to the vet about drugs to help us through the storms.
Darin says
So miss living on the farm during lambing season. NOTHING like looking out the kitchen window and watching a whole group of little ones racing and springing in the air with their long tails wiggling behind!
Karissa says
Being a person who tends to collect black, white & black/white animals, I am IN LOVE with your “Border Collie marked” lambs. More pictures, please!! :o)
Kat says
I love imagining that Will is looking at the lamb thinking, “but wait, aren’t you a sheep, why do you look like me?”
I’m going to shamelessly use anthropomorphism here because I can’t think of any other way to phrase this thought. Is it possible that dogs, like people, can be optimists or pessimists? I read the post and the comments and it seems to me that these are dogs that acting as if they believe that because something bad/scary happened in these circumstances once bad/scary things will always happen in these circumstances and one of these times it’s going to get me. I contrast that with Ranger’s attitude which is that something bad/scary was here once but it didn’t get me so I don’t need to worry about it anymore. The other night on a walk one of our neighbors was moving screens that someone else was getting rid of. He walked across the street in front of us maybe 10 yards away and it definitely looked weird even to me so I can imagine it was very disturbing indeed to Ranger. He was very hesitant as we walked forward (I could tell the guy would be across the street and into his garage well before we got close) and looked around nervously when we crossed the area where the strange apparition had been but once he saw that the weird thing wasn’t there anymore he wasn’t worried and shows no hesitation in that area. The next time we walked there he did give it a more deliberate scan than he does most places but there was nothing to see and now he doesn’t even do that. I’d say that Ranger is an optimist and expects that good things will happen more often than bad and that there are other dogs that are pessimists and expect bad things to happen more often than good.
I don’t think I’ve articulated it very well but hope that there might be some sense to be found in my ramblings. I don’t know how much of it is genetically hardwired, how much is early experience, socialization or training but just as there are people who constantly worry about things and expect something terrible will happen at any moment while others breeze through life with nary a worry always expecting something wonderful just around the corner I think the same is probably true of dogs.
Mary says
Hello Amanda,
Aggressive bees…yikes! Poor Bailey. I don’t know if a bee stung my Lacy and she has generalized her fear to flies. That is a possibility. I do doubt that anyone ever beat her with a plastic bag or a curtain though 😉
I agree with your advice that people with fearful dogs should get them out and active and working at some task they can excel in.
Lacy AKA “Chickie Dog” and I are off to a brand new 8 week obedience class tonight for her to perform her demo duties. She’ll be so very happy! I love it when we get a shy dog in class and I can show the owner that their is hope, as well as give them some specialized attention since I’ve “Been there,done that”. They do sometimes have a difficult time however believing that my dog was ever “that bad”, when the truth of it usually is that she was much worse.
Liz M. says
Also having a dog with what seems irrational fears, I know this can be frustrating. My dog, Plato, (7 year old berner mix) high tails it out of the kitchen every time I have steak on the counter and turn on the broiler. He is fine if I have steak on the counter and he is fine if I turn on the broiler (without steak on the counter), but together there is nothing I can do to get him into the kitchen. It took me years to realize why he is so terrified of those combined things. Not being the best cook in the world (or even close) on occasion I have been known to set off the smoke detector while broiling my steak. Apparently Plato has figured this out and does not want to take the chance of being nearby if that were to happen. ; -)
I haven’t read all the comments, so forgive me if this has already been said and tried. Have you tried spending time with Willie in your bedroom when it is not time to go to bed? Will he play in the bedroom? or use a food toy? Have you tried sleeping in a guestroom?
As always, it is a pleasure reading your blog. I love the pictures of the lambs, so sweet. I saw newborn lambs yesterday in my travels and immediately thought of you.
Good luck with Willie and keep us posted. I can’t wait to meet you in August in Exton, PA!
Anne J says
Congratulations on all your lambs! I love this season too. I was thinking about mother dogs and mother sheep while watching the lambs, and also the “come” command. And about how mother dogs don’t really call their pups, as I was watching the ewes call their lambs. The ewes had finished their grain and all wanted to go lie under a tree. The lambs were busy doing “lamb stuff” around the feeders. The ewes would each walk about 30 feet, then look around for their lambs and not seeing them call “baa”. Generally it took 2 “baa’s ” for each ewe to get her babies’ attention and those particular lambs would come running and have a drink of milk. So they not only call them, they reward them for coming.
Sherron says
My two cats, who at one point in there lives were afraid of no dog, are now pretty much terrified of any dog. I fostered a Lab mix who caused them both considerable distress. The dog, Rosie, ignored them for the first two weeks she was at my house. I have two other Lab mixes and two small dogs. The cats have never had an issue with the small dogs, and had finally established a let’s-leave-each-other-alone relationship with the big dogs. Neither were afraid of the new dog, although they were cautious around her. So, for two weeks, everything was fine. But then Rosie finally settled in and her stress level abaited…and she tried to kill both of my cats. They each successfully avoided physical injury, but I fear they are both scarred for life. After those terrible encounters, I kept the cats and dogs separated. Rosie was with me for several more weeks before she was adopted. When she left, I thought things would return to normal, but now my cats were afraid of my big dogs, too. I fostered and subsequently adopted another Lab mix who thinks the cats would be terrific playmates, but they very obviously think she wants to kill them. She gets so hyper around them that any kind of conditioning I’ve tried has not worked. She’s foaming-at-the-mouth excited, but has never tried to put her teeth on them, although she’s had several opportunities (like when the cat was in the living room and I didn’t know it, so I closed all the doors and baby gates, blocking any chance of escape she might have).
It makes me incredibly sad that experiences with a dog I fostered has forever ruined any relationship my cats might have with my dogs. It has also impacted my relationship with my cats because we don’t get to spend very much time together.
They are still okay around the small dogs, but when I let my twins (Lab mix littermates) around them, they are afraid and run for cover. These two dogs don’t even try to chase them, but my poor kitties are so afraid! Bless their little hearts! I keep hoping that one day they’ll realize that they’re safe, but so far, they’re skeptical.
Jessie says
I’ve not commented on this topic until now, but I think that the most disturbing and harmful problem with the idea of “dominance”-based training is that it assumes an adversarial relationship between you and your dog. Training is set up as a contest of wills, of winners and losers–no problem solving is even contemplated! There is always a winner and always a loser in every single interaction with the dog in ‘dominance’ training. It really makes me wonder about what sort of human is attracted to that worldview and if the idea of training their dog is not a proxy for all their anger and frustration with the world at large. You certainly see it play out that way in many people who adopt it. You also see people to whom it never ‘felt right’ and who are incredibly relieved that they can reject it, but the overwhelming majority who buy into the misguided ‘dominance’ theory will cling to it at all costs because it somehow services their egos. Scary!
Joanna says
My goodness, those black and white lambs are too cute for words!