# Dogs afraid of guitars



## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

My dog has been around guitars ever since we got her as a pup a year and a half ago, but she is still afraid of them. She tries to sneak around them and when i go to get one of them to play she goes out of the room and hides. Does anyone else have this problem? When can I do to stop it?


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

That should read "what can I do to stop it". Oops


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

when I first got my dog as a puppy he would leave the room if I played guitar or bark back at it but that went away once he got used to it.

Why is it a problem that she leaves the room when you play? I think that's ok to do and it's better than barking. My boyfriend's dads dog leaves the room when they play or even during loud movies and she's a confident dog. I think she just doesn't care for the volume of noise


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

maybe the sound is painful?

not that you don't play well...but perhaps the dog is sensitive to certain notes....

either that, or she prefers a different genre 

sorry, i have no help for you......except to say, we do aversion therapy with food.

when my pug jumped three feet just hearing aluminum foil, we laid a piece down on the floor with food on it. each step brought us closer to him being able to be in the room whilst i tore a piece of aluminum foil. now he is fine.


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Jesses dog is afraid of guitars or he was...

She might chime in


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

It's not a problem, I really don't mind. It's just that she leaves the room AND hides. The hiding part is what bothers me.


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

Kassandra said:


> It's not a problem, I really don't mind. It's just that she leaves the room AND hides. The hiding part is what bothers me.


like some dogs do during a thunderstorm? does she whine, pant, look distressed too?

you could try what Re said and make it a good thing by pairing it with food. I don't think you want your dog touching your guitar but here' s an example of something I did.....I started triebball type training with an exercise ball that murphy was always scared of (like he thought it was going to roll over him). i taught him to touch my palm, then touch my palm while in front of the ball and then he was able to touch the ball. now he can push it around and he used to run away from it and bark at it. some people do this positive reinforcement training with clickers. google training touch or clicker training to give you some ideas. good luck!


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## doggiedad (Jan 23, 2011)

when you learn to play your dog will lay at your feet
and listen. LoL.



Kassandra said:


> My dog has been around guitars ever since we got her as a pup a year and a half ago, but she is still afraid of them. She tries to sneak around them and when i go to get one of them to play she goes out of the room and hides. Does anyone else have this problem? When can I do to stop it?


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

Haha thanks guys for telling me I can't play well  I've been playing for 12 years now, I think I'm alright  I guess I'm not though, oh well!

I just find it strange, she isn't afraid of any other noises, including bikes, chainsaws, thunder, etc. But she won't even go in a room if the guitar is in it so I have to hide it in a closet. I really don't mind that she doesn't like the guitar in general, but the fact that she hides from it to that extreme, to me is crazy and unacceptable. I know she doesn't like the noise but she isn't an overly submissive dog or anything, so I don't know why it would scare her so much if it isn't even being touched. 

I've tired to use food to win her over too, but she isn't a big eater anyways so it didn't work. I've also tried to train her next to it so she got used to it being around. I've even tried the "flooding" method as a last resort as it works well for some dogs. I've tried these methods for around a month before I gave up with no success at all, she wouldn't even sit once while next to it, or even in the same room, she kept trying to hide behind me the whole time. This is very strange for her, because even in the marsh during hatching season (we use her for bird hunting and like to get her out during hatching season to get used to it) she listens perfectly and doesn't even try to test me.

If anyone has any other tips or ideas I could try I am more than willing and extremely open minded.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

what would happen if you just put the guitar on the floor and left it there? with a piece of something that she values...


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

magicre said:


> what would happen if you just put the guitar on the floor and left it there? with a piece of something that she values...


I have tried this as well.. She just sits in the corner and stares at it. ONCE she got brave enough to run over and grab it really quick but once she saw the guitar again it was almost like he legs stopped working and came out from under her!


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

What kind of guitar is it?


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

An acoustic. I've never really been able to get into electric.


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## KittyKat (Feb 11, 2011)

I'd try finding a food she really likes, be it cheese, sardines, stinky liver treats - whatever. Once you find something she really likes, you can start to desensitize her to the guitar.


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## Dude and Bucks Mamma (May 14, 2011)

Emily, I can't believe you remembered that about Buck.

My dog is afraid of guitars (only in person, not on tv, radio, etc.) and my saddle. He reacts like your dog when he sees the saddle. With Buck, it happened all of a sudden. The saddle has been in this house longer than he has. Because I no longer have a horse (I prefer to say, "I'm in between horses, at the moment" Hahahaha), it was never moved around and I took it out of the room it's always in and he walked into the room and it was like he suddenly noticed it. He reacts the same way yours does when she sees your guitar. 

We make sure it is always in the middle of the living room so he is always around it. We will discretely drop treats next to it when we walk by it so they seem to appear randomly. Almost like the saddle is producing them. We leave them there as long as it takes for him to work up the courage to go get them. Once he gets used to the saddle being where it's at we move it. It seems to throw him off when it goes from one place to another so we make sure it doesn't sit in one place for too long. And there are always treats near it.It is, slowly but surely, becoming something he associates with treats. He reacts to it less and less and, eventually, will probably not give it a second thought.

If it was a guitar I would probably refrain from playing where he can hear me until it isn't scary all by itself anymore. Once the guitar itself becomes no big deal then having something REALLY delicious for her while you quietly play it might help her associate the sound with good things. Play as quietly as possible for just a few moments and stop. Keep that up until it's no big deal and increase the volume until you can play normally. 

That is, personally, what I would do if I had access to a guitar


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

I never thought of making it seem like the guitar itself was producing the treats... that sounds very promising!!

I don't care if she doesn't want to be around the guitar or listen to me play, I just don't want her to be afraid of it and hiding all the time whenever she goes into a room with it. She also isn't afraid of guitars in videos, recordings, etc, only in person. Maybe the frequencies are different and she remembers the noise coming from the guitar so she doesn't want to go near it in case it "wakes up"???? I hope I don't sounds like a complete idiot 

Will definitely try that out though, thanks!!


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

i like the treat producing idea too.

I have noticed that if a ball ends up close to the guitar stand murphy carefully extricates with his paw like he knows he's not supposed to crash into it. If a ball goes under a couch though he'll paw at it like a maniac. It's probably because I did something when he was younger to make him realize he should be careful around it because I don't remember specifically training him to do that. Maybe it almost fell on him once during a fear phase? who knows?

I asked what kind on guitar it was because I was wondering if there was something about the appearance or a reflection that freaks her out because the object itself upsets her. I assuming it's a regular looking acoustic guitar so I can't think of anything that would do that.


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## Kassandra (Jun 6, 2012)

BearMurphy said:


> I asked what kind on guitar it was because I was wondering if there was something about the appearance or a reflection that freaks her out because the object itself upsets her. I assuming it's a regular looking acoustic guitar so I can't think of anything that would do that.


Well, it is blue if that makes any difference at all. But other than that it looks the same as any old acoustic, there isn't anything special about it. It really isn't even all that shiny so I don't think she is getting a weird reflection from it, either. I am going to start trying the treat-producing idea and hopefully it works!


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## MissMercury (Sep 7, 2011)

This thread made me laugh. Sometimes dogs are just dumb. It would take forever for me to list all the various random things that I've seen dogs be afraid of over the years. I had a Rat Terrier who was terrified of bubbles, and watermelons. My mom's Lab was scared of plastic bags,and my APBT,Chloe, once refused to come into my bedroom for about two weeks after I hung a small shelf on the wall. When she first saw it she went ballistic barking and growling,then hauled ass out of the room. She would sit in the hallway a few feet from my door looking into the room and shivering. It upset her so badly that I eventually just took it down. It was utterly ridiculous.


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