sarabz Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 There are two tables in our building's lobby that Bella seems terrified of. I can't figure out why but when she has to go past one or the other she walks as far away from them as possible. If she has to walk near them, she leans as hard as possible against me and scrambles to get by, which usually causes her to slip a little on the marble floors, making the problem worse. Quote Dave (GLS DeviousDavid) - 6/27/18 Gracie (AMF Saying Grace) - 10/21/12 Bella (KT Britta) - 4/29/05 to 2/13/20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiveRoooooers Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 I wonder if Bella is seeing her reflection? Quote Old Dogs are the Best Dogs. Thank you, campers. Current enrollees: Punkin. AnnIE Oooh M Angels: Pal . Segugio. Sorella (TPGIT). LadyBug. Zeke-aroni. MiMi Sizzle Pants. Gracie. Seamie . (Foster)Sweet. Andy. PaddyALVIN!Mayhem. Bosco. Bruno. Dottie B. Trevor Double-Heart. Bea. Cletus, KLTO. Aiden 1-4. Upon reflection, our lives are often referenced in parts defined by the all-too-short lives of our dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarabz Posted May 11, 2011 Author Share Posted May 11, 2011 She seems to enjoy her reflection in our floor-length mirror, but maybe. Quote Dave (GLS DeviousDavid) - 6/27/18 Gracie (AMF Saying Grace) - 10/21/12 Bella (KT Britta) - 4/29/05 to 2/13/20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FiveRoooooers Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 I guess depending on how the light hits it, she might see the reflection in the table for much longer than she does in your mirror. It might provide a longer, moving shadow, if you will. Poor thing Quote Old Dogs are the Best Dogs. Thank you, campers. Current enrollees: Punkin. AnnIE Oooh M Angels: Pal . Segugio. Sorella (TPGIT). LadyBug. Zeke-aroni. MiMi Sizzle Pants. Gracie. Seamie . (Foster)Sweet. Andy. PaddyALVIN!Mayhem. Bosco. Bruno. Dottie B. Trevor Double-Heart. Bea. Cletus, KLTO. Aiden 1-4. Upon reflection, our lives are often referenced in parts defined by the all-too-short lives of our dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macoduck Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 Evil table scares her because.......it has 4 legs yet no head. Could you lay a nice smelly treat on that table to make it less scary? Quote Freshy (Droopys Fresh), NoAh the podenco orito, Howie the portuguese podengo maneto Angels: Rita the podenco maneta, Lila, the podenco, Mr X aka Denali, Lulu the podenco andaluz, Hada the podenco maneta, Georgie Girl (UMR Cordella), Charlie the iggy, Mazy (CBR Crazy Girl), Potato, my mystery ibizan girl, Allen (M's Pretty Boy), Percy (Fast But True), Mikey (Doray's Patuti), Pudge le mutt, Tessa the iggy, Possum (Apostle), Gracie (Dusty Lady), Harold (Slatex Harold), "Cousin" Simon our step-iggy, Little Dude the iggy ,Bandit (Bb Blue Jay), Niña the galgo, Wally (Allen Hogg), Thane (Pog Mo Thoine), Oliver (JJ Special Agent), Comet, & Rosie our original mutt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3vagreys Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 That table scares me. It looks like it might break at any moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleptogrey Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 i love all of the answers above, evil table, no head , might break:lol try having a high quailty treat and talking to your pup when you pass the "table". have your pup on the other side, away from the object in doubt and keep her focused on you and the treat. annie spooks at various things, i just laugh it off and interest her in something way better- marshmallows do it every time for my scardey cat. don't use that treat anywhere else, she will start to look for the treat when you enter the lobby with in a couple of runs in and out of the building. eventually you will be able to stop near the table and talk to someone, just feed her those treats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BrianRke Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 That is a scary table with all that glass and pointy legs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yamaha_gurl Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 Is she crated? If not perhaps it almost looks like a crate to her and she's scared of going in... Quote Greyhound Collars : www.collartown.ca Maggie (the human servant), with Miss Bella, racing name "A Star Blackieto" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFullHouse Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 What's that black thing on the table? From the angle it looks like a cat. She may be afraid of the things on the table and not the table itself. Quote Judy, mom to Darth Vader, Bandita, And Angel Forever in our hearts, DeeYoGee, Dani, Emmy, Andy, Heart, Saint, Valentino, Arrow, Gee, Bebe, Jilly Bean, Bullitt, Pistol, Junior, Sammie, Joey, Gizmo, Do Bee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SoulsMom Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 (edited) I totally 'get' this. Soul is scared of the strangest things too. Weird random things like certain cutting board, a lamp in the living room, and my light sabar Edited May 12, 2011 by SoulsMom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurenbiz Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 To the OP- I didn't put two and two together! I follow your blog, and I typed a comment about your table problem yesterday! Quote Lauren the Human, along with Justin the Human, Kay the Cat and Bernie the Greyhound! (Registered Barney Koppe, 10/30/2006) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest zaylea Posted May 13, 2011 Share Posted May 13, 2011 Batou was scared of all kinds of weird stuff, like the mop and (parked) red cars, and somewhat reasonable stuff, like new places. He was really big strong boy so it was easy for him to freeze up and resist me. However, he couldn't resist wheelbarrowing (i.e. stand behind him, grab the "hams" of his legs, lift him up and push him forward so that he's briefly walking on his front legs), and eventually he learned that freezing up was never an effective strategy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Scouts_mom Posted May 14, 2011 Share Posted May 14, 2011 (edited) My silly Henry went through a stage when he was scared of stop signs. As I live in the city this was a problem on our walks. What caused it? Who knows--maybe the sun reflected strangly off the back one time? He has gotten over it pretty much although I still see him glancing up at them to see if the evil sign is going to attack him. To help him thru the fear, I let him spend as long as he wanted to staring at the signs, and then tried to get him to walk as close to it as I could without him freaking out, all the time talking cheerfully to him about how silly he was. It helped that his grey-sisters laughed at him too. Edited May 14, 2011 by Scouts_mom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Snazzy_Chloe Posted May 16, 2011 Share Posted May 16, 2011 I would scotch tape some news or other paper to the sides to kill the reflection, then put a treat nearby, so that she can come up and sniff it. Once she can get close to it and is OK with it - I would remove the paper one a day to see if that helps. I would say she saw a moving reflection or shadow on it. My dog eats next to the fridge - and one day she would no longer get near her food bowls. I think she saw her shadow move and it startled her. The bad things is that these guys have long memories - easpecially when something scares them - they become wary for quite a while. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobesmom Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 I've had greys and foster greys scared of everything from ceiling fans to the sound of frying bacon. I still maintain - greys are weird! I also believe there's a reason for the fear - one that you may NEVER understand. Maybe one time when she walked by the table, someone made a loud noise - so she associates the table with a scary noise. It can be that "random" to us - but makes perfect sense to her, because that's the way her brain processed it. Desensitize. Walk past the table - give a treat. Turn around, walk past the table again, give a treat. Do it over and over until you bore her to death. Start out as far away as you can get, slowly get closer each pass. Make it the most normal thing ever. Repetition of good things happening at the scary place over-rides whatever demon she has associated with it. BTW - desensitizing the foster that had a fear of the sound of frying bacon put a good 10 lbs on every member of this family. Thank goodness it only took a week of daily bacon!!! The upside was - afterwards I could get that dog to do ANYTHING for a piece of bacon! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest NJgrey Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 Ellie is/ has been afraid of the following: - wood cut outs in the shape of dogs used to scare away geese - snowmen, but not all. Just those that are small and in moderate to severe stages of melt - small, fluffy black dogs I can't explain any of them, but I do know the only thing that made it all better was passing them day in and day out. Then she just got used to it. I agree completely with sobesmom. It happens for reasons we'll never know, but the best you can do is try to de-sensitize. Don't force the issue by making her go close. Let her go at her own pace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Greytluv Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 Bella Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kydie Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 I vote with Sobesmom, one never knows,, but really,, I'd be scared of that table too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jaws4evr Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 Our GH has similar "scary" spots in the house.. we're pretty sure they're unrelated to teh furniture (kitchen table, island corner etc) and more related to slipping on the floor. The furniture is just a "marker" for "place I slip sometimes", which as youv'e said, is a self fulfilling prophecy! Nina tries to use her claws to dash by scary spots, which of course makes her skate around like she's on ice skates and makes the next attempt even worse. We've had some success with slowing her down. We don't try to make her go TO the table, if she wants to mash herself against the opposite wall that's fine. But we use either body blocking, or a leash and stop her forward momentum. We then ask her to stand there until she relaxes, (on her own power, not holding her still) which seems to help her brains quandry between dashing forward past scary spot, and being afraid fo slip You could always test the slipping theory by putting a little area rug near the table and seeing if it makes a different. DH and I joke that we could put a juicebox in the middle of a hallway and Nina would be absolutely stuck forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest momofevie Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 While I feel bad for the dogs, this thread is cracking me up! Hoping Bella is finding her way around the table more comfortably. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patsy Posted May 20, 2011 Share Posted May 20, 2011 I'll admit that table weirds me out, too. Quote Patsy and DH with the Humane Society specials, Linus & Jazz, in North Dakota Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cleptogrey Posted May 22, 2011 Share Posted May 22, 2011 so, what's the update w/ walking by the table? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarabz Posted May 22, 2011 Author Share Posted May 22, 2011 Ah, yes, updates! I don't really care that she doesn't like the table (I don't, either!) but when the lobby is crowded I can't have her banging into me trying to get away from it - she's caused me to almost fall one morning and has caused me to bang into other people, and that why I need her to get better about it. So, lots of back and forth near the table until she was sick to death of it, lots of yummy smelly treats on, under and around it and she's much better. She's making less of a point of lunging away from it - still looks at it a little warily but that's ok. The advice here and what I did was pretty close to what I would have done with a spooky horse so I guess I need to just bring some of my horse experience to dogs Thanks all! Quote Dave (GLS DeviousDavid) - 6/27/18 Gracie (AMF Saying Grace) - 10/21/12 Bella (KT Britta) - 4/29/05 to 2/13/20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sobesmom Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Ah, yes, updates! I don't really care that she doesn't like the table (I don't, either!) but when the lobby is crowded I can't have her banging into me trying to get away from it - she's caused me to almost fall one morning and has caused me to bang into other people, and that why I need her to get better about it. So, lots of back and forth near the table until she was sick to death of it, lots of yummy smelly treats on, under and around it and she's much better. She's making less of a point of lunging away from it - still looks at it a little warily but that's ok. The advice here and what I did was pretty close to what I would have done with a spooky horse so I guess I need to just bring some of my horse experience to dogs Thanks all! WooHOO!!! Great job!!!! Mind-numbing boredom, and treats - the perfect combo for de-scarifying! Do a follow-up boredom and treats session in a couple weeks, just to reinforce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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