nougat

My girl is also pretty sensitive to sights and sounds, which is tricky because we live in the city. What's helped is teaching her the 1-2-3 pattern game, which I start playing if we are approaching something that might be distressing for her (e.g., a loud, idling truck) or if some loud car might be passing by. This helps bring her attention to me and distract her from the trigger (i.e., the loud noise) so she doesn't have the opportunity to notice and get scared. Also helping is just to mark -- either with a clicker, or a verbal "yes" or some other word -- and treat every time a loud noise happens (e.g., a honk from a car), which in theory helps her associate the loud noise with something positive (a treat), and has the bonus of getting her to look at me every time something loud happens. At the very least, having these strategies under my belt make me feel more comfortable walking her because I feel like I have ways of dealing with the situation when something spooks her. In terms of the length of the walk, we really kept the walks quite short when we first got her. We would walk a 2-3 blocks to somewhere we could sit and watch people and cars pass by, and I would explain to her "that's a car" or "that's a stroller". I'm sure I looked quite crazy, but I'd like to believe that me explaining things to her kind of helped, or at least the normal tone of my voice helped reassure that there was nothing to be afraid of. We would go to the same location for a few days, and then extend the walk by a block, finding a new place to sit and watch. I think that sometimes just being outside to expose them to the sights and sounds of the city, and without the pressure of walking and going somewhere, helped. And Fig is such a great name! I hope Fig is able to feel more comfortable soon (: