Today our dog (10 month old Akita), who was in a fenced area in the yard, started barking and howling unusually loudly. A neighbor’s dog started barking as well. We got out to see a stranger with two dogs walking away, already pretty far away. Our dog was shaking badly. By the time we calmed her down and tried to find the stranger to ask if he saw anything unusual, he was gone and we couldn’t find him. There’s sort of a double fence between the dog and the road so it’s unlikely somebody made any physical contact with her.
So I guess I have two questions - does shaking indicate fear, or something else? And what non-physical contact can cause this reaction in a dog? Any speculations on what happened?
I’m not a vet or anything but let me give it a guess. First of all Akitas are extremely protective of their families. So she was probably all filled with adrenaline at the thought of having to protect her family from these strangers walking near enough to smell and the neighbor’s dog barking as well would have just gotten her all the more excited. Then the strangers left and she didn’t actually have to use the adrenaline in her system for more than barking so it left her shaky. You ever have a near miss with your car? Same thing.
I think mom is right. I had a Labrador and she was the same way. When my kids were outside and someone passed by, She would be shaking out of her skin.
Thanks for the reply - that certainly sounds possible. Still a bit strange though, we live on one of the wider roads in the neighborhood so we have lots of people walk by with dogs, as well as many commuters on their way to the bus stop. She should be used to strangers walking by, if that’s all he did. Do you suppose he did something unusual?
Hard to know, because as familiar and loved as dogs are, they’re still a different species. And pretty individual to boot. But keep in mind their hearing and sense of smell is so much more acute than ours. I doubt if you/we will ever be able to pin down exactly what triggered the response, but at some level the dog perceived threat.
This is a total non-answer, but sounds to me like it’s fortunate that you had a warm, furry, loyal alarm system out there. It could have been another animal, lurking unsee, or the passerby. No matter what, your dog picked up on it and reacted.
Out of curiousity, what did the two dogs look like that the stranger was walking away with? If they looked like huskies or german shepards, they may have been wolf or at least part wolf.
Dogs have some pretty intense reactions when smelling a wolf or coyote in the area.
FixedBack
“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.”~~*G.K.Chesterton 1908 *
Somomom, Sorry took the easy way lol. However, my nine year old girl types almost as well as I do.
REV,
not nice…We dog lovers love our dogs almost like our children.
Didn’t get a very clear look, but they were both mutts, one white and one black, both about the size of a cocker spaniel. Didn’t look very wolf-like to me.
I realize there’s probably no way to find out what happened - I’m not worried, I’m just curious.
I lived for a while on a farm in South Dakota. During a snow storm, my two dogs came to the door, barking and whining. When I opened the door, they would run out into the snow and look back at me. When I went outside, they led me to a fence corner at the feedlot and although I crossed the fence, they would go no further. It was a board fence, they would have had no difficulty in going under the lower board. Anyway, they stood in one spot with their hackles raised and alternated snarling with barking. I saw no tracks and no apparations but the two dogs were terrified. I let them spend the night inside and the three of us periodically opened the door to check outside. When the sun came up, we went back to the same spot and they crossed the fence quite willingly and did not appear to be at all distressed. I never did get that one figured out. Maybe it was a ghost, who knows?
I sort of remember being baffled by that song----I never could stand to listen to it closely enough to learn if it had any redeeming value. Anyway, had I remembered the refrain, I would have used the word “blizzard.”
