Strange
Noises
...
A dog that is not afraid of noise is more pleasant
to own. To some extent, noise shyness is an inherited characteristic.
Steadiness to shot is of primary importance in the temperament
of gun and guard dog breeds. If you attend a Schutzhund or
field trial, you'll find the dogs impervious to the guns
going off all around. They are also fairly staunch in the
face of all noise.
Historically, I suppose Akitas have little reason to
be unaffected by noise, and many seem unsettled to
some degree by loud noises. I had a female who hated
the sound of generators. Believe me, getting into a show site without passing
a generator can be difficult depending on the parking. If we walked by
one, I
might just as well have turned around and gone home as take her in the
ring. Somehow, she seemed to think they were mobile
and any minute, one would make
an appearance.
Most dogs aren't so neurotic, but you never know what will
happen. We've all seen dogs react poorly to loudspeaker announcements,
falling chairs, or other unexpected sounds at a show. Years
ago, while the groups were going on at the dog show site
on one side of the river, the city set off fireworks on the
other for some sort of celebration. We spent hours trying
to catch a Sheltie that had gotten away from its handler.
A multi-group winning dog, it was so traumatized by the experience,
it was never shown again.
Noise shyness is a trait you can breed away from, although
it is of considerably less importance than many others. If
you think you might have a problem, the time to start working
with your puppies is while they are in the whelping box.
Make sure they are in a noisy environment, although it should
not be at such a level it makes them unduly nervous.
Play a radio on rap, hard rock, and talk stations. I have
a satellite dish and one of the channels we get has nothing
but war movies. My last few litters listened to bombardments,
machine guns, and bombs every night.I took two of them out
to a Schutzhund German Shepherd Specialty when they were
six-months old, I was very pleased by their response to the
guns fired off in the ring right in front of us. The male,
who was asleep, looked around, then curled back up and went
back to sleep. The female was unconcerned initially, but
after about ten shots, she turned around and looked at me
for reassurance. I continued talking to my friend and after
a few seconds, my puppy began playing with her toy. Her mother,
on the other hand, would have bolted out of there at the
first shot, so I think early exposure has helped.
Desensitizing
puppies to noise is also important if you live in an area
with frequent thunderstorms. Since these
never go away, the dog's fear tends to escalate.
In the worst cases, the dogs engage in escape behavior
which means destruction
of their confinement area. This may be a crate
or your windows and doors.
