Can A Fear Of Hardwood Floors Be Trained Away?

[jaym1]

I've had Tempo for a little over six months. He is a very, very passive dog, with mild to moderate separation anxiety issues, and he is fairly high strung in general when it comes to being startled. He is currently on 10 mg/day fluoxetine for SA, though the addition of a second grey has rendered the SA moot, and he will likely be weened off that medicine soon. Anyhow, I'm sure you've all experienced the occasional smooth floor flip out, where they start to slip, go up on their nails, and are off to the races, making what would have been a simple slip-up into a traumatic event. What happens with Tempo is that he will slip on a certain area of the floor, remember that area, then tense up next time he has to walk over it, which causes him to slip again when he crosses that same spot. From his perspective, then, there actually is something dangerous about the patch, because he continues to slip every time he crosses it. At this point, he has now established so many of these place that he spends much of his time trapped in the half of my apartment that has a rug and the dog beds, rarely venturing out from there. His food and water bowl is not in this area. He will go over there when he's calm, but when I am feeding him (and thus he is excited, and wagging his tail), he will tense up and run around in circles over the rug, but will take forever to cross the smooth floor to eat. It's pretty sad.

 

I live in an apartment that is one large, single room. My only option is to cover it with a hodge-podge of rugs, which I am glad to do as a temporary measure. But this seems crazy, and I'm sure there's got to be some way of conditioning him out of this, so I'm hoping those here with experience can give me some advice.

Edited April 22, 2012 by jaym1

[Brandiandwe]

I'm lucky in that this isn't an issue for me, and so others might need to chime in, but could you make him a 'bridge' over the dangerous part of the floor for now? A nice big wide one with lots and lots of rugs and leave it there for a while. Then, one day, remove a bit of the bridge, and keep removing bits gradually until he's fine? A bit like other forms of desensitisation training (we're doing the same with handling Brandi's feet and nail clippers)

[jaym1]

hm. that is an interesting idea! makes sense. right now i have these little dog socks with rubber tread on the bottom that i try to make him wear whenever i remember. with them on, he couldnt slip if he tried, but im yet to see results. its so sad to see him with his head down, stuck on an invisible island in the middle of the floor, testing each step forward with his paw.

[cleptogrey]

make sure his nails are trimmed- keep them short, it may take a regime of cutting them very frequently and then maintaining them. also, there is some stuff out there for show dogs called tacky paw. it's a non-toxic product that handlers use so dogs don't slip out when they are being shown, some handlers show dogs at a good pace and the indoor mats are grooved but sometimes slippery. check out cherrybrook or other sites for buying dog show equiptment/grooming supplies.

 

it takes time and you have to be confident. i wll say a nice sisal rubber backed runner looks good and saves the floor. ikea has them pretty cheap. we had one accident on mine, nature's miracle and weighing the wet area down w/ books kept the rug from buckleing. it's a natural fiber and it will warp if wet. but it looks fine. also non-skid mats(60" runners) polyproplene are thin and easy to care for, they can be found at bed bath and beyond. that may help as well. i use one on the leather seat of my parent's car, my dogs skid out on leather!

 

be patient, positive and don't wax your floors

[OwnedBySummer]

Summer used to be really bad about the floor (I have shiny tile from the foyer through the kitchen to the breakfast room and the back door) and she absolutely has to traverse it. After she'd done a couple of those horrible-to-watch slip-outs, she was in much the same state. So I took her out to any store that I could get her into -- Home Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, Petsmart, anywhere. And we walked and walked and walked (and greeted people, of course). She doesn't like slippery floors to this day and would rather walk on anything else... but she will do it. I do keep a rubber-backed mat at her food/water station, in front of every door, at the bottom of the stairs to the 2nd floor and where she gets up & down from the window seat. I think she's as good as she going to get. There is hope for improvement but I have my doubts that your pup will ever be confident and totally comfortable on the bare floor.

 

ETA: And I keep her nails dremeled as short as possible at all times.

Edited April 22, 2012 by OwnedBySummer

[jaym1]

thanks. his nails are pretty short. the thing is, he's not scared of slippery floors, and will walk on them when we're at other peoples houses or in pet stores. and like i said, he's not even particularly scared of this floor. its just these little islands of terror in the floor that he's created. though i suppose thats a subtle difference.

[Batmom]

Put some nonskid runners down along his path. Eventually you'll probably be able to replace them with smaller ones, and then maybe do away with them altogether.

[Guest DragonflyDM]

You can train a dog to be confident on hard slick floors like wood and tile. It took me about three months of taking boomer to Petco an hour every other day to get there. Lots of praise, patience and practice.

[MaryJane]

just put down rugs so he can be comfortable ... maybe later you can think about removing them but, the longer you make him afraid of walking on the floors the longer it might take for his fear to go away.

 

think about it like training wheels on a bike - you don't make your kids ride the bike without the extra wheels and then at some point when they "feel safe" the training wheels come off......

[sweetdogs]

Get the rugs. I have a very confident boy who after 3 1/2 years will still tread very carefully on any part of my laminate floor that isn't covered. I would never dream of removing those rugs for him.