Our 2 year old rescue (Yorkshire terrier and Jack Russell cross) came to us 5 months ago (today).
He is a very anxious dog due to the fact he was crated for the first year of his life, from 7 weeks old. He was never walked or even was taken outside of the flat he resided in. Absolutely everything is new and very scary to him.
We are working on things with him every day and some things he is getting better with, others not so much.
One of those is an issue we have with vacuuming. He hates the vacuum cleaner, it’s obviously a very scary and noisy contraption to him.
However, I obviously need to clean my house.
I have tried popping him in the garden whilst I do this but he will bark until he is hoarse and disturb the neighbours.
Today, I popped him in the kitchen with the utility door open so he had both rooms free. I then shut the kitchen door and vacuumed the upstairs and remainder downstairs.
He didn’t bark, which I thought was a good thing until it came to check on him and I found he had taken out his anxiety on his mattress bed!
The behaviourist we are working with suggested that we located an old vacuum and leave it around the house but this caused him so much stress, he would attack it regularly and that would wind him up so much and leave him anxious for hours afterwards.
She also suggested throwing treats at him whilst I’m hoovering but that is far from ideal (I only have one pair of hands!).
I know it will (hopefully) just be a matter of time (along with many of his issues) before he becomes a little more settled with the vacuum but what else could I try to help him.