Dog Shaking and Miles' First Birthday!

Well, readers, Miles turned one a little bit ago. It was fairly anticlimactic - we'll probably have a party at some point, but not tons of pomp and circumstance. Our cat Ella turned nine the following day (and can I just say that I find it absolutely hilarious that they have nearly identical birthdays?), and so we celebrated that day by giving ella treats and a fun toy and by doing the same for Miles. Poor Bernie felt left out, so I threw him a couple of treats also (his birthday is June 4).

Anywho, something interesting has happened twice now, and even if it only happens once, my "RESEARCH IT!" button is pushed.

Miles is not generally afraid of loud noises. This past summer, we had fireworks close to our apartment (sometimes literally in our driveway...yeah, our neighbors are that kind of awesome), and he was totally fine. However, when the smoke alarm goes off, he shakes in fear, tucking his tail and showing every sign of doggie fear. He is so afraid of that thing it's almost comical, but I start to laugh and then I feel bad.

It turns out that shaking is how a dog's body responds to adrenaline pumping through it. It's generally a fear response, but if a dog gets really excited over something, it can also happen then. We've never seen him shake out of excitement, only fear. Both of the instances that Miles has shaken, I succumb to my instincts (a bad thing in this case) and console him while he just sits there and shakes. It's a bad idea to do this because it reinforces the fear. But we also bring him outside right after it happens, and he's fine when he gets outside, but immediately starts shaking when he comes back in.

So, the key, I have learned in my research, is to not reinforce the fear. Ignore the dog, and if you want them to do something, then give commands, but don't be too stern. I need to learn to treat him as I normally would. I have also learned that wrapping an ace bandage around a dog's torso will squeeze him - it's supposed to calm dogs down.

With this newfound knowledge, we'll have to see how this summer goes. There's this great thing that's made for dogs called the thundershirt, and I have both read and heard excellent reviews on how much it calms dogs down during things like thunderstorms or fireworks. If he continues with the shaking, we may have to invest in one.

In the meantime, we'll try not to start fires in our apartment. Harder than it seems with the way Rob cooks ("Excuse me? ME? The way IIIIII cook?" Says Rob). :)




I know - I keep posting pictures from when he was a little baby puppy. We're going to have a fun photo shoot soon, because his cuteness lately has been about a 25 on a scale of 1-10, but he absolutely will not let me take a good picture of him lately - he does something cute and sees me pick up my phone or the camera and he's all "UM, NO." Sigh. He's such a good boy.