Barks at Reflections on Ceiling and Smoke

[Guest]

Any ideas on how to break our cairn from barking at reflections on the ceiling and steam and smoke? He goes balistic when you get out the aluminum foil and it cast reflections on the ceilings. Sunlight reflecting off objects does the same. The steam from our hot tub drives him crazy..Otherwise he is a wonderful, smart, inteligent dog.

[Guest]

I hate to tell you this, but this nutty behavior is actually quite common for a Cairn. Shadows, reflections, steam, smoke...that's all something that's different from the normal environment they're used to, and so therefore it must be barked at until it's gone and things return to normal.

As far as the foil, I know that drives my dog nuts too. I try to say calming things to her as I tear off a sheet and do it quickly and get it over with. She also doesn't like plastic trash bags.

Take care! Susan

[bradl]

If you've done any obedience work with your dog you can also leverage that. Often it takes so much concentration to do one thing they can't manage an undesireable behavior at the same time. For example, I put our boy in a Sit or Down when preparing to open a champagne bottle; otherwise he goes wild. (I release him for the pop though -- why risk him breaking his Sit during the really exciting part. Sniffing the cork is his reward for not barking during the unwrapping.)