# Why is my Golden afraid of everything?



## Dubckeeper

I have a female Golden Retriever that is 13 Months old. Her name is Sophie, but we jokingly call her Marley.
She is afraid of everything (vacuum, cars, people until she warms up to them, other dogs until she warms up to them.) Walks are the worst as she is always tugging to get away from everything and is dying to get back into our home. She is just nervous all of the time. Ears are back 65% of the time, no matter what i do. I constantly play with her, but it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas on how to resolve this? 

She is a great girl, just need to address this before it is to late.


----------



## 3 goldens

I have never had one that was that scared. My one girl, Kaycee was never scared of people or other dogs, but was scared of the vacuum things she didn't recognize as being in the house before, etc. Oh, she was scared of our vet and would try to hide behind me--but she had had to have both knees operated on, shaved areas a number of times due to hot spots, ets. We called her a Scaredy Cat, or Miss Chicken.,


The golden we have now is scared of certain sounds. She will be 12 on Jan. 8 and we adopted her this last Feb. Her owners have no idea why she is scared of these sounds. If you cough or sneeze, she runs off, but comes back to you in a few minutes. It isn't lasting, she isn't scared of you, just the sound. Also the toilet flushing makes her run--she likes to follow us into the bathroom. She runs from the vacuum--not the sign of If, just the sound.

Another thing about our Sophie. (she is Sophie also), we had her several weeks before she ever barked. And then it was a single bark to let us know she wanted to come back in. We found that if we ignored her, she would bark a single bark again, ignore her and she just lay down there on the patio by the door.

But ion the past couple of weeks, she has actually did some "real"barking three times--once when she was by the front door and someone knocked, once at something she saw in the front yard, and then day before yesterday--no idea. She was sleeping on the sofa and she suddenly lifted her head, got down and started barking.

I hope someone has some real answers for you. But I have seen this problem here a couple of times over the 10 years I have been here.


----------



## Anon-2130948gsoni

What is her background? How long have you had her? Have you taken her to any training classes?


----------



## Charliethree

'Feed the dog.' 
She is not fond of people,(cars, vacuums) finds them quite scary, does okay with other dogs, once she gets to meet them, but, even some of them may give rise to pulling to get away on the leash. 
Going for a walk is scary for her, when you take her out keep it short, go at quiet times when you are unlikely to overwhelm her with 'too much' scary stuff. When you see a stranger at a distance, it is perfect time to build her confidence, work to change how she feels in the face of 'danger', as she perceives them. 'Feed the dog', move off to the side, create some space, don't ask her to do anything, don't ask her to respond to a cue, she is focused on keeping herself safe, just 'feed the dog'. 'Feed the dog' changing how she feels about those things that worry her, someone is approaching, step off to the side, feed the dog, keep feeding until they have passed by. Someone is coming from behind, easy to tell, she hears them, she is checking, worried, her tail drops, she looks for an escape route. Move her off of the path, allow her to see, feed the dog, as the 'danger' goes by. 'Feed the dog', not to distract or dissuade her from keeping an eye out, keeping herself safe, but to change how she feels about those things that worry her, so that, in time, those things that she feels are a danger become predictors of good things for her. 


At home where she feels safe, work on building her confidence, practice and reward skills that she already has. Teach her to make eye contact with you, watch and reward 'offered' eye contact, (she looks to you without you asking her to), once she does well with it at home, practice it on walks. Teach tricks, new skills, teach her a behavior such as 'touch' (her nose to the palm of your hand) that would be easy for you to redirect her attention to when out on walks. Perhaps set up a mini 'obstacle course', things she can learn through lure and reward to climb on, (a box) go through or under, or jump over, being careful to create positive associations with any obstacle she may be afraid of. If she is afraid of a box, for example: place a trail of treats on the floor, leading up to it, more around it and some higher value treats on top of it, then allow her the time and space to choose to approach, and eat the treats on her own.
When out on walks, again, keep it short, and increase distance and duration as she become more comfortable/relaxed with it. Work to keep her engaged with you, talk to her, ask for and reward skills she already knows, sit, touch, walking by your side, helping her to stay in 'thinking mode', giving her mind and body something 'to do' and creating positive associations with it.


----------



## Dubckeeper

Noreaster said:


> What is her background? How long have you had her? Have you taken her to any training classes?


We have had her since she was a puppy. 8 weeks. We received her from a friend who had a golden that had a litter. 
We have had one trainer, but I feel her did more damage than good. (Not a happy or cheap experience).
We go on walks where I live and she is ok with them, until a car passes by (doesn't even need to be close) and then she wants to go home. 
Really I am not worried on the Vaccuum issue as I am sure she will get better with that, but the cars issue is a bad one as I would like to be able to take her on walks or eventually go for jogs with me to get her even more exercise. 
Her issue with warming up to people is more than likely a socialization thing that I am working on as well as the dogs. She loves playing and once warmed up, she is amazing and smart and friendly. Just want her to be less nervous all the time. 

Home that helps.


----------



## gdgli

I have two thoughts on this. First, Sophie needs to be gradually exposed and habituated to all of these things. This is commonly called socialization. Secondly, it sounds like she may need to be counter conditioned to some of these things. If she was frightened due to improper exposure to these stimuli counter conditioning is the answer.


----------



## Vhuynh2

I had a puppy for a little while who spent her first 9 months living in a quiet, rural area. She spent quite a bit of time during those 9 months with me in the city with lots of cars going by on the street (I lived on a really busy arterial road back then) and had always been OK although I knew she was sound sensitive. When she came to live with me at 9 months, the city just so happened to start doing construction on the roadway in front of our apartment. At night they covered the areas with large metal plates and when the cars went over them, the loud noise scared her so badly that she no longer wanted to even go out the door at the next outing. She started to fear ALL cars. We didn't have a yard back then so she had to go on walks to potty, but she was terrified; her heart beat a thousand times a minute, my BF had to carry her, and she was too afraid of her surroundings to even consider taking any of the treats we had (in attempt to lure her/make the walk positive). One night, late in the evening when traffic slowed down, I boiled some chicken (extremely high value for her) and sat with her inside the apartment lobby door (it was glass so she could see outside) and whenever a car came by I would give her some chicken. After a few minutes she calmed down so we moved outside. I would feed her every single time a car approached. We slowly moved closer to the road and did this until she finally felt comfortable walking down the block. She was 100% fine after that.


----------



## anamcouto

Ella is what I call a sissy dog, until very recently she was afraid of even getting a toy under the table or chair, now she's brave about it and she will try and get it but not too much. She's afraid of a lot of city sounds because we live in a very quiet private compound so she's not used to the busy city noises part of it is my fault because I didn't exposed her to them part is due to the circumstances we didn't had a car when we got her and we still don't like to go the city when we are off work.
What do I do when I need to take her somewhere like that? I try to think in advance of her reaction so if I see something that in the eventually of coming closer she'll be scared I stop walking, get to her level and hug her, pat her and reassure her softly that mommy is there it's all good. I let her take her time before getting closer to the problem. Sometimes we just go somewhere just to sit on a planter and watch the city life, we just stay there looking at the cars and motorbikes always comforting her and slowly she is getting more tolerant although I think she will never fully accept it.

But then again we also don't want to have much to do with city life


----------



## Debs66

When we were first able to take Newton out she was terrified of traffic. Not good given that we live at the side of a fairly busy road. I basically took her to the edge of the drive where she wasn't reacting and sat with her calmly, feeding her her usual dog nuts (kibble to you US folk I think!). I'd do this in two 15 minute sessions per day. Then gradually move closer to the road as her tolerance improved. It didn't take long, maybe three days for her to realise that traffic meant treats which also of course distracted her from it. She's fine now. I think it's about gradual exposure and distraction. Also I ignored any fear response she showed as apparently fussing them when they show fear can inadvertently reinforce it as far as I've read. Hope that's helpful!


----------

