Dishwasher Phobia

[Guest Whistle]

Yes, you read it right. I adopted Vroom about five months ago. She was a bounce and had been in a home 4 or 5 years. She is very sound mentally, other than extreme fear of the dishwasher. I have been letting her outside when I need to run it - she will stand at the back of the yard and do okay until it is done running. I then let her in when it is done and she is fine. If I try to run it while she is in the house, she goes upstairs (evil dishwasher is downstairs) and stands on a bed panting, shaking, and drooling until it is done. I have tried turning on the TV, a fan, and a white noise machine while she is up there "hiding." I've also tried to shut the door and shut the blinds so it is dark and quiet. Nothing has helped. It is so bad, when she first came to our home, she went through a storm door to try to get away.

 

It is going too get to cold for me to let her outside while I run it soon. Does anyone have any ideas on ways to help her with her fear? I can handwash everything if I have to, but it would make life much, much easier if I could find a way to help her. I work from home, but I still have a very busy schedule. I cook a full sit-down dinner every night and our family goes through A LOT of dishes.

 

I've kept or fostered a lot of storm-phobic hounds, but none have been to this extreme. I would really appreciate any advice.

Edited November 24, 2010 by Whistle

[Guest Giselle]

Whenever it's fear based, the same general advice applies: 1) counter-condition 2) desensitize. However, before running that dishwasher full blast, I would first suggest counter-conditioning to the silent machine itself. You want her to associate the machine with positive things so that she learns it is not something to fear but something that is either neutral or good.

 

Step 1: Get her to enjoy the silent dishwasher. Sit by the dishwasher and give her a couple of REALLY GOOD treats (like boiled chicken or Natural Balance food rolls). Once she's accepting the treats from your happily and easily, open up the dishwasher door. Continue feeding treats. If she's nervous, take a step back from the machine and start there. Remember: you want her to stay as comfortable as possible. If she's nervous is any way, she will not be able to learn and make the correct associations.

 

Step 2: Have her offer alternate behaviors with the silent dishwasher. This teaches her to focus on you, not the dishwasher. Be forewarned: you can't skip to this step until she is totally comfortable with the silent dishwasher itself. That's what Step 1 is for. You can have her do a myriad of things, ranging from simple "sit" and "down"'s to other tricks. I prefer to have the dog interact with the feared object. This, I believe, helps the dog understand that the feared object is not scary, but interesting and fun. What you can do is teach her to target the dishwasher door with her nose. I had a video teaching a simple target, but I can't find it at the moment. In the meantime, this is a short How-To: http://www.wagntrain.com/Target.htm

With the dishwashing machine, you can train her target a Post-It note and place the Post-It on the dishwasher door. The beauty of the Post-It is that you can also put it on the palm of your hand when you need to be mobile.

 

Step 3: Starting from a considerable distance (like the other side of the room), have a friend run the dishwasher for a few seconds. As soon as it turns on, redirect your pup and have her target the Post-It note on your hand. Reward. Target + reward multiple times. If she can't focus because she's too scared, you can use another easier behavior (i.e. Sit directly in front of you) or move farther away from the dishwasher. Only run the dishwasher for a *few seconds* at most!! Once she's able to perform an alternate behavior at a decent distance, move a little closer and keep asking for the other behavior (be it "Target" or "Sit" directly in front of you). The point is to keep her attention solely on you and not the dishwasher. Repeat this and move incrementally closer to the dishwasher until she's performing behaviors for you right up against the running dishwasher.

 

This will take awhile, but, if you do it correctly and efficiently, I've seen severely fearful dogs learn to enjoy the "scary" object in a matter of 5-10 minutes. It can be done! Good luck!

[Guest Whistle]

This is GREAT advice and information. I've printed it all off. We'll try it and I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you so much!

[buddibear]

I had a spooky bounce come to stay for awhile. The white fridge broke down and as long as all the other appliances were black,I bought a black fridge. This boy would not come in the kitchen for 3 days.He would stand in the next room while all the others ate in the kitchen. He finally came around when he saw chicken feet being handed out from the black monster. All was good until the ice dropped in the plastic container. Back to dining room dining.

[Laurenbiz]

Giselle gave some great advice here!

 

While you work on that training, though, you may want to take your Greyhound somewhere else fun while you run the dishwasher. Have you tried getting her in your car, running in and turning on the dishwasher, (so she's never even in there as it starts,) and then take her to a pet store or just go joy-riding? This may be an alternative to letting her outside since it's now getting cold.

 

If my guy had this problem, I would try that. He loves car rides, though, but I'm not sure about your doggie.

 

What a strange phobia. I rarely use the ceiling fan in my living room, but if I do, Bernie looks at it strangely, and then he leaves the room! But, he's not really frightened.

[Guest Sunset123]

Here's how my trainer taught me to re-condition my dog to sounds:

 

Make a recording of the dishwasher's noise (or get someone to help you do that). Find a stereo with good volume control and a pause setting. Get some very high-value treats (like hot dog) and cut them up into teeny-tiny training pieces.

 

Now, turn your stereo down as low as it goes (you should only barely be able to hear it). Play the noise and make sure the dog hears it. Play a little bit, and praise him lavishly and give him treats. It's just like charging a clicker, if you've ever done that. Repeat at the very low volume many times until he seems comfortable with the sound. He shouldn't be showing any signs of nervousness.

 

The next day, start low, then turn the volume up just a tick. Repeat the process. (Play some dishwasher, praise&treat, play some dishwasher, praise&treat). You want to do this in short sessions so he doesn't get tired of it.

 

The next day, turn the volume up a little again. If he's freaked out about the noise, go back to the last volume setting. Hopefully he should be calm or even excited about it because he's associating it with treats.

 

Keep going with this slowly. If you can, move the stereo around and do it in different locations of the house. What you want is for him to be able to ignore the sound or to be happy about the sound. Of course, when you run the actual dishwasher you want to lavishly praise him and give him treats as well.

 

I did this with a CD of dog noises (growling, barking, etc.) and a CD of firework sounds. It really, really worked. Now when we're on walks and a dog from another yard barks, instead of whimpering Arrisa wags her tail and puts my nose in my hand looking for a treat.

[Guest Whistle]

Lauren - If I know I'm going to be going somewhere she can go and we need to run it, I will. But, it honestly makes more sense to just hand wash them than it does for me to load her up and leave to run the dishwasher, especially since I work from home. I agree - very strange phobia. It's really odd too because she is otherwise completely without any quirks

 

Sunset, we will try that too. We could incorporate that with what Gisselle recommended.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to type out such great advice.

[sobesmom]

You've gotten good advice here, and it should work for you.

 

Just to make you know you're not alone..... I had a foster that was afraid of NOTHING - but bacon. The sound of bacon frying put him in a panic. We couldn't fathom why. So - we ate a TON of bacon for a couple weeks - doing desensitization. The dog loved eating the bacon - and we gained 5 lbs. - but he got over it!

 

My Sobe - HATED the vaccuum. And - he NEVER got over it. All the training in the world couldn't fix that. He did get to the point where he didn't have to go outside - but just to another room when I ran the vaccuum. It wasn't even the noise - the SIGHT of the thing sent him running. I took him to a M%G at a shopping plaza - and a customer bought a vaccuum and walked past us - and he freaked out!

 

Try to desensitize - it usually works. Sometimes - it doesn't. So - you just adapt.

Edited December 13, 2010 by sobesmom

[Moneypenny]

I am new to Greytalk, but not new to greyhounds. They have shared my life for over 14 years. I wanted to say thanks for this thread. I have a senior boy that was returned to my group in February, his owner passed away. He has had a horrible fear of the washing machine. I don't have a basement in my home and the washer is off the kitchen. Every time I would run it, he would go into a panic, similar to storm phobia. We worked around it for the most part, by letting him stay outside while the washer was running. That is until it got cold here in the midwest, I couldn't leave him outside, so I used all the pointers in this thread and we have overcome our fear of the washer! He is still aware of it, and concerned, but will lay down on his bed and tolerate it. Thank you again!

[Guest Giselle]

I am new to Greytalk, but not new to greyhounds. They have shared my life for over 14 years. I wanted to say thanks for this thread. I have a senior boy that was returned to my group in February, his owner passed away. He has had a horrible fear of the washing machine. I don't have a basement in my home and the washer is off the kitchen. Every time I would run it, he would go into a panic, similar to storm phobia. We worked around it for the most part, by letting him stay outside while the washer was running. That is until it got cold here in the midwest, I couldn't leave him outside, so I used all the pointers in this thread and we have overcome our fear of the washer! He is still aware of it, and concerned, but will lay down on his bed and tolerate it. Thank you again!

Congratulations!! Over time, with more positive associations, he will drop his concerns soon enough =) Great job!