The First New Thing I Learned in 2009

New Year's Eve and July 4th are pretty much torture for Katie the Corgi and for anyone else in the same house with her.  Out here people shoot off fireworks and sometimes a gun  or two during the night.  The sounds freak out Katie.

I did some research on the web about this behavior and found that a lot of dogs develop a noise phobia.  Thunder storms, fireworks, motorcycles -- anything loud can set it off.  In fact the number one cause of run-away pets is noise phobia.  They become so frightened by storms they try to escape anywhere they are closed in.  Some dogs will gnaw through screen doors or jump out of windows.

The typical human response is to try to calm them.  Turns out that just makes it worse.  With severe cases like Katie's there's not much you can do except try to get them to the quietest place in the house without windows and medicate them.  So, it looks like Katie will be spending more time in the safe room. With 6 inch solid concrete walls and ceiling it's pretty soundproof.  This problem is not just a nuisance for us, it's actually not healthy for the dog.  Noise phobia is not bad behavior; it's pure unadulterated panic. 

So that was the first new thing I learned in 2009.