I was watching Family Guy and Brian is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. I am feeding and watching my neighbors dogs for a couple of days, so I tested it out. Neither dog, (One is about 2 and the other is probably 11 or 12 years old) is the slightest bit afraid of the vacuum. The young one will even let me vacuum him.
When I was little my dog didn’t mind the vacuum at all, but he was deathly afraid of the ironing board. It probably fell on him, but he was so afraid of it, and we never knew why.
So what things are your dog afraid of. For the purposes of this thread, I’d like to keep it to material things, not like thunder or something.
Our late dog was frightened of thunderstorms. She would crash through our not terribly secure fence & run for miles. She turned up at our local video store so often they kept biscuits in for her.
I loved her, but I sure don’t miss the responsibilty.
My old dog (dalmatian) used to be scared of the vacuum, I don’t think my new one (black lab) cares about it. Though he gets very wary & startled when seeing something, anything, new where it has never been before. We left a bag of flour on the kitchen counter, he saw it and barked at it while backing away. A large plastic ball in the yard? bark bark bark back away!
My dog is afraid of so many things. We rescued him from a shelter when he was approx. 10 months old and have had him for 10 years- during which time he has never been anything but spoiled and loved, never experiencing anything even close to abuse, yet he is still terrified of:
bushes (he hears things moving in them)
flag poles (a small one did fall on him once)
vacuums (he isn’t so much afraid anymore as much as angry at them and will attack it on sight)
brooms (no idea why)
small dogs (my dog is 114 lbs of Labrador/GSD mix)
big dogs (he will warm up to and befriend small dogs eventually but remains terrified of larger dogs no matter what)
mailboxes (both free standing and mounted on walls- no idea why)
tall grass (same as bushes I think)
and probably a lot of things I am forgetting.
Oddly enough, given this list one thing he is not afraid of that we recently discovered is deer. We encountered a deer in our park on one of our normal afternoon walks the other day and he stood perfectly still and allowed the deer to approach him. The deer (timidly) walked up to him and they touched noses for a while, then the deer allowed him to sniff at her (him? it had no antlers and appeared full grown) for a minute before some kids shouted on the other side of the park and startled the deer into running away.
My dog got skunked three times in one summer. You’d think he’d make the connection skunk = bad. Not that dummy
Oh yeah I said “Dog” in the thread but if you have a cat or hamster or whatever that is afraid of a thing feel free to add it
When I was a kid we had a german shephard and I don’t remember her being particulary afraid of the vacuum. She hated the lawn mower though. She wasn’t afraid of it she HATED it. When we mowed the lawn she would get into foaming at the mouth barking fits. One time she got out of her kennel and attacked the mower, seriously attacking the wheels. :eek: I managed to get the mower turned off before she hurt herself and it only took her a minute or two to settle down once it stopped running. After that we made sure she was inside the house when we mowed the lawn.
We owned a cat who was afraid of a hamster in a ball. She seemed very intent on stalking it when the hamster was still, but when the ball started rolling towards her, she freaked out and ran. It was like the hamster had gone from “dinner under glass” to “mobile, armored attack rodent”!
Another of our cats was terrified when we hooked a windsock to her collar. I figured it would just annoy her to have it dragging along, but she apparently interpreted it as something chasing her intently, and ran like mad all over the house (with me chasing her) until she finally, exhausted, crammed herself under Mom’s bed and I was able to take it off.
Our min pin isn’t afraid of the vacuum but it is his mortal enemy. You fire that thing up any where and he comes charging out of nowhere to bark and bite at it. Our terrier mix does that too, but he’ll knock it off if you tell him to. Not the min pin - its always a struggle. (a cute one if you are in the mood for his crap!) This applies to shop vacs and the lawn mower. We of course don’t let the dogs be in the yard when we mow, but he freaks out when you fire it up.
I am not sure, but I believe part of the breed trait of min pins is absolutely no fear of anything. Anything. He is just a bundle of hate at lots of things though. He has even picked a couple of our friends to hate because they stomped at him when he came running at them.
My dog is 55 lbs of courage when it comes to people, other dogs and animals. The almost inaudible beep that the camera makes when I turn it on? Scared of it. The sound of my Iomega zip drive starting and stopping? Terrified. Ride in the car? Loves it. Car hits rumble strip or puddle? Panic.
Tilly - plastic bags, keychains, really loud thunder. I’d also add “earthquake”, but the one big one we had last year is about all central Indiana is gonna (hopefully) see for the next several decades, so it doesn’t count (but it scared the shit out of her).
Toby - angry people. If you’re yelling at something (i.e. the TV) and wave your hands, he’s cowering like a little school girl. I don’t have high hopes that his original owners treated him well, unfortunately.
My chihuahua will squawk and jump three feet if she steps on a stick or pine needle in the yard. She is convinced it’s a SNAKE!!!
My dearly departed Buddy (cockatiel) would get all spinny-eyed and freaked out whenever he saw a yellow tape measure. He was convinced it was a SNAKE!!
My dog is terrified of the ironing board also and most large flat things like window screens not in the window. He is afraid of the mantel clock because it is shaped kind of like the silhouette of a head and shoulders.
We have a baby gate with a hole cut in it so the cats to go in the unfinished 1/2 of the basement. The dog can’t go in or he’ll eat the cat poop out of the litter box. Anyway, one day (I wasn’t home but I can guess what happened) he tried to follow the cat through the hole and got his head stuck in the baby gate. It was quite a struggle and he must have got the gate off the door frame before it got off his neck. Now he will not walk within ten feet of the gate unless we are with him.
My corgi is afraid of the air mattress we get out when guests are over. I was getting all the air out of it one day by basically pouncing on whatever part puffed up, and she thought I was fighting with it. To this day she still barks at it.
Same with the fake Christmas tree. I accidentally knocked it over one day and it fell toward her, “attacking”. She won’t go near the thing now.
My dog Charlie, who died a couple years ago, was completely terrified of balloons. Not all balloons - just helium ones the day after they’d been inflated and were sort of floating just a couple feet off the ground. Freaked her out. She’d cry and hide under the bed.
She also would go to the door and bark if she heard a doorbell on tv, which always made us laugh because she never actually lived in a house with a doorbell. I have no idea how she made that connection.
Our new puppy hasn’t revealed her fears, yet, although she did jump about a mile and run to the door this afternoon when a crow cawed from the tree we were standing next to.
My dog doesn’t flinch at too much, but cowers from the brush. I worry that her previous owner beat her. She also does not like to play chase. She’ll run from me, but she is clearly not having fun. (Actually, we’ve been working on that. But when I try to play chase with her she launches herself at me wagging her tail. She still cowers when others try to chase her.)
Other than those too things though, she is very laid back.
yes minpins are very aggressive. My late minpin used to hate vacuums, lawnmowers, brooms, vermin and playtoys. She would try to kill all types of plush toys, the quick repeated rotating head swings to kill by breaking a vermin’s neck. As well, tug of war with a rope was fun times when she was young.
As she aged, one thing i did notice was her fear of the bus rumbling by the sidewalk as we went for walks. She’d cower towards the houses and lawns and watch the bus rumble by. Cars didn’t bother her, it was the local city transit bus that roared and gave that massive air exhaust when it stopped.
Oh, my black lab also used to be afraid of my bed. One time a few months ago he took a running leap onto it, and crashed right through the wall into the attic! So understandably, he was a bit freaked out of going into my room for a time after. Now he’s back to his usual self and hops right on up whenever I come home to visit.
She seemed very intent on stalking it when the hamster was still, but when the ball started rolling towards her, she freaked out and ran. It was like the hamster had gone from “dinner under glass” to “mobile, armored attack rodent”!