Saturday, August 23, 2008

The alarm goes: Beep, beep, beep

For all of those of you out there that were planning to break into our house, well, you've missed your chance. We had an alarm system installed on Friday afternoon.

Along with our alarm system comes a lot of beeping noises. Echo has a little tendancy (or BIG tendancy) to be slightly (or completely) neurotic about beeping noises. Our house is a lot of fun right now because any time that a door opens, the alarm beeps, and Echo freaks.

So, being the wonderful pet owner that I am, I am trying to figure out what to do to help her to calm down. The first natural step was to google my question.

I thought that I'd share some of the funny responses to this question that I found online.

Here are a few of the best ones (verbatim):
  • Sometimes they cannot - not be scared. The only thing that may be able to help him is some anti-anxiety pills from a vet. With the anti-anxiety you have to catch the dog before it starts to storm or it wont work. So if it looks like its going to storm give him a pill or correct dosage given so that it's in his system before hes stressed out. Goodluck. My lab is petrified of the vaccuum, spoons, cups and strollers.
  • The condition that is causing this behavior to manifest is genetic, it is a temperament disorder called weak nerves and there is nothing you can do about it. The dog will always be this way. Hope I helped!
  • Just be completely calm and he will pick up on it and follow suite.
  • My little Yorkie, Delilah, is fearless except for the sound of bubble gum popping. The sound causes her to leave the room and hide.
  • If your dog is nervous or barking at the beeping noise from your smoke detector, it might be because he is afraid that the battery life is low and it needs to be replaced.

DUHHH. Why didn't I think of that? Maybe if I chew bubble gum, tell her not to worry because we have batteries in our smoke alarm or show her some cups and spoons she'll be distracted from the beeping noise. Compared to the the stories above, Echo may be more normal than I previously thought...

3 comments:

Katie said...

You know you can turn that off. I had to otherwise the kids would open the doors and shut them over and over just for fun.

Josh M. said...

Earl isn't scared of a thing. Except black people, I think.

Fun fact: just ever-so-slightly whisper the words "come in" and watch Earl lose her damn mind. It's a great game.

Fashion Limbo said...

I've just come accross your post. My dog has developed the same reaction to "beeping" sounds. It started with the sound my mobile makes when low on battery, and now it's also the laptop beeping, or any beeping sound used on television to hide a rude comment. I did some research on the web, but no useful response, apart from not "babying" him or rewarding for the behaviour...I'm worried it's going to get worse with time.
So all this rant to tell you that I totally understand your problem. Have you managed to fix it by now?