I am the proud owner of one of Julie R's Puffin x Chief 8 month old female. I want to get some different opinions as I am having an issue. The last couple of weeks Tara has become skittish on three different occasions. My wife was walking her and a UPS truck passed them. The pup "cowed down" when the truck drove by. We did water work today as I was walking back there was a stump in our path that frightened her. It's just been little things like this that are startling her.

A little history. She has been well socialized and until a few weeks ago very brave about everything. I'm not worried just a little concerned. Anyone ever been through this with a young female. I just don't want it to get worse if there is something I need to be doing. Greg

Hi Greg,
I have had them go through fear periods. Mostly younger than 8 mos., but I have known plenty of other dogs, Chesapeakes too, that all of a sudden get skittish over dumb (to us) stuff.

Even Puffin, who is a social butterfly and rarely ever skittish or spooky, has wigged out a few times in her younger days over dumb stuff. One time I was driving my POS old hoopty and it blew a radiator hose/overheated about 2 mi. from the farm. It's cell phone hell where I live and I was way too trifling to walk so I nursed it along boiling radiator and all til it died just close enough to coast into our driveway. The entrance to our drive is wooded and almost a mile from the house. Needless to say no one ever comes down the drive on foot, so when I crested the hill and came into view, Puffin & my old dog J-Bell went absolutely nuts, spazztic barking, bug eyed, freaked out. Even when I started calling their names and they could see and smell me, they were really spooky. It took Puffin a good half hour to calm down. A day or two later, it was really windy and a plastic bag caught on a shrub near the drive and you'd think it was a sow bear out to kill the way she acted, she would not go near it! For a full month or longer, she barked and growled every time she heard a leaf rattle on the driveway.

That incident was so funny we still laugh about it, but in general we ignore any spooky puppy jaboonery. Puffin is a little bit of a drama queen and she seems to pass that on so just don't make a big deal out of something Tara spooks at, distract her and carry on. Panda is about 13 mos. and has gone through some of the spooks herself and she's inbred on Puffin. She's very social and outgoing so I mostly just ignore her little hissy fits. LOL. How bout a picture?

Thanks Julie, picture in a couple of days. Thats how long it takes me to figure it out. Sunday I took Tara to town in my old jeep. She loves to ride and always sits upright in the front seat. I had both widows rolled down and met an eighteen wheeler. It about blew the top off the jeep. Scared Tara and she crawled onto the floorboard. Anyway it's just been a few little things. I will ignore it and carry on. Other than a potty training issue we have had no problems with this pup. We couldn't be happier. Greg E

I agree with Julie, I think they go through different fear stages...

Hitch went through them - not so much after 4 months...

Dayzee went through them til she was about 12 months....

exposure exposure exposure....

Juli

Bear use to freak out when ever we came upon any kind of road sign or no trespassing sign, he'd bark and growl at them, it was always a good laugh, we use to egg him on and he'd try pulling the signs out of the ground. He must be getting smarter with age because he doesn't do it anymore. It was funny though.

One last thing.....don't make the mistake of cooing to her that "it's alright....it's okay. blah, blah, blah" as this just reenforces the spookiness. Dogs don't think like people and they will play off your body language or voice intonations. We can tell people that things are okay and unless you are speaking in a foreign language, they hopefully would understand.

If something is spooking the dog, distract the dog from that and get the dog focused back on you.....talk the dog up....doesn't matter what you say, but say it in a happy upbeat tone of voice and when the dog focuses on you, keep up the happy tone of voice and reward the dog with treats for focusing on you.

Years ago I had the dubious job of unspooking and doing the basic obedience training on a totally spooky young Standard Poodle. We'd go out and walk the local walking paths along the creeks and open space area near my office. I'm sure people thought I was nuts as I stood there saying in a loud happy voice to the Poodle, "Oh, look Portia, the ferry boat is coming in.....look how pretty the ferry boat is....isn't the boat pretty.....it's slowing down....looi Portia the boat is slowing down" -- as the big loud truck rumbled by in the boulevard on the other side of us! But hey....it worked because today you'd never know the dog had a spooky bone in her body! I kept her focused on me, rewarded her for that behavior, and kept a totally upbeat attitude and tone of voice. Basically everything was a party, and we got the training included as well!

Kathy Miller

Thanks for the replies.

Greg,

How did this turn out??

Josh