Dog stressing out with smoke alarm

Hi,

I am looking for some advice for my collie, Bree.

We have a VERY sensitive smoke alarm in the house - it's a council house so it kinda has to be there, personally i want to smash it to pieces but Mrs. ZHR won't let me - it is right next to the kitchen. Almost every time i fry anything it goes off. Fortunately i don't fry often. The slightest whiff of smoke and it goes off.

Bree used to be ok with it. She just lay still when it went off. We adopted another dog, Jet, who barks constantly when the alarm is going off. This upsets Bree. Bree has gotten worse and worse each and every time the alarm sounds to the point that it takes her a few hours to settle down after it. She is no longer getting upset by Jets barking - she is terrified of the smoke alarm.

She has spent the night trying to squeeze into any little gap in the bedroom, scraping at the floor to try to dig herself in. That is getting Jet upset and we can't get any sleep.

Is there anything we can give her to calm her down in the short term if the alarm goes off? as i really don't want her stressing out for this length of time. Her heart is pounding and she is panting. I have her down stairs and have given her a poor excuse for a massage which has settled her a bit, but every time we go back up stairs to bed she freaks out after i switch off the light and we go through the whole thing again.

long term, is there anything we can do to train both dogs to chill out a bit when the alarm goes off? I don't want them to completely ignore the alarm, but if that's the only way then so be it.

Oh dear thats sad
I found rescue remidy can help in the short term - or the vets can give something
and trying to not let the alarm go off - easier said than done I know - mine is dissconected!

How about taping it when both dogs are out then training them one at a time how to deal with it
Starting v softly play it when the dog is doing somehting nice like eating and then over time build the noise up

Or you could even get the noise (again starting quiet) to be a trigger for a behaviour - like you play it and get them to run and lie down on a matt?

i eventually called the vet at 1.30am this morning.

Their advice was to take her for a walk to try to get her mind of it for a while - she had already had two walks since an it made no difference and administer any sedatives i may have left over from other treatments - which i didn't have. so i took her out again for about half an hour, she was her normal self outdoors but went straight back to stressing out when we returned.

Eventually Mrs. ZHR slept on the couch as Bree is a bit more settled down here.

She is still very upset this morning. She had a very restless night as did Mrs ZHR.

We now have to go to work but Bree is following us around everywhere we go. She is normally quite laid back in that she would rather sleep while Jet follows us up and down and makes sure we are not getting into trouble. This morning she wouldn't even let us in the bathroom without coming with us and staying even if the shower got switched on. - our dogs hate the bathroom, especially when you turn on the shower - bath time!?!? outta here....! however she did just squeeze herself in between the wall and the toilet bowl until we were ready to leave.

i'll be taking the day off work and going down to the vet.

Collies can be so funny (not always funny ha-ha) about things like this and it can be really difficult to get them over it.

How are you treating her when she gets nervous - do you comfort her? If so, hard as it is, I would stop that - it only convinces them that they were right to be worried. The best way is to act completely normally.

I agree with Ben McF that the best thing is to try and get her associating the noise with something good, but the difficultly here is that you have to find something that she loves sooo much that she ignores the noise. I've recently been fortunate in discovering my noise-scared collies secret obsession - the water pistol

Now whenever load noises start, the water pistol comes out. Yes, she's still scared, but it definitely take her mind off it.

thank,

it is very difficult to act normally (ie sleep) when the dog is scrapping the floors and walls frantically trying to squeeze into a 2 inch gap between the bedside cabinet and the wall.

initially when we got Jet we would carry on as normal until the alarm stopped but jet would bark constantly and this started Bree getting nervous about the alarm. When we'd worked that out, whenever the alarm went off i'd open the back door and let them into the garden. This stopped Jet barking and we thought that Bree was getting less stressed because of it but as i explained above, it is now taking hours for her to calm down and even still she is effected by it and doesn't want to be left in the house. It is over 12 hours since said alarm last went off.

We are trying to ignore the behaviour as much as possible.

She is completely fine when out for a walk, no problems coming back into the house but as soon as the harness is off she is back to finding somewhere to hide.

I tried leaving them in the hall (their usual place when we go out) and went out the front door as normal and walked to the end of the garden. I returned to the house and she was scrapping at the kitchen door. Tried again but still the same. Each time Jet was getting stressed and barking.

I then tried leaving the living room door open and leaving the house again. This time much better, no scraping but her heart was pounding when i came back in. A second and third time was much better. I have just come back in and she is now lying flat out on her side, half under the dining table, a lot more relaxed.

I will keep at this extending the period to a walk round the block then try to get her in the hall when i leave.

Poor girl really has got it bad hasn't she.

It sounds as though she really needs a place where she can go and feel safe.

Have you ever used a crate for either of them? A crate covered in blankets so it is dark and quiet might help her to feel safe. Alternatively you could try putting her bed under a table and draping blankets down so that she has a little 'nest'.

Evidently its not the answer to her fear of the alarm, but it may help her calm down a bit quicker after the scare.

Move the alarm. Beside the kitchen is a daft place for it to be (sorry). Mine is on the upstairs landing. As my house is tiny, this covers all areas.
I`m not surprised the dog freaks at alarms going off - this is perfectly natural. It`s the alarm that needs fixing IMO, not the dog!

It probably isn't as simple as that C&D - they are often wired into position (and nearly always just by the kitchen). Plus with it being a council house, the OP isn't free to do whatever he wants to it.

I'd opt for keep the kitchen door shut and the kitchen windows open when frying!

I`ve lived in council houses. You get maintainance round once a decade if you`re lucky.
Smoke alarms run on batteries. Take the battery out. Buy another smoke alarm (they`re really cheap) and install it somewhere else.
Just because you`re house is rented doesn`t mean you can`t do stuff in it!

Yes they run on batteries but sometimes they are wired into the house mains circute and when this is the case, (1) you can't move them very easily) (2) they make a very loud and annoying beeping noise when the battery is taken out/needs replacing.

If it isn't wired in I would agree with you.