What random things is your dog scared of?

[Radiodread]

I’ll start:

Flags fluttering or anything particularly flappy, which made coronation weekend a bit of a trial and makes me nervous about going camping…

inanimate things that look like animals or people - there is a house nearby with very large, baffling, pair of stone Great Danes outside, which shall not be passed under any circumstances.

Tinfoil, sellotape and Velcro (being pulled off the roll/ pulled apart)

Helium balloons - not to be trusted.

The hoover, anything that might possibly morph into a hoover, (so any kind of machine or contraption that goes on the floor, a lawn mower, a rake, a brush, etc), something new in the garden that looks suspicious (this week it was a banana I put out for butterflies and was consequently barked at). Helium balloons or anything static that might move independently, a flag, bugs in the water in a pot outside. Suitcases don’t scare her so much but she gets all nervous and fidgety if she thinks we might be leaving her behind (even though we haven’t done that for 5 years)

Wheelie bins. He would rather turn around and walk on a 3 mile detour than walk past one on the street.

They are such funny buggers. Many of the other ones mentioned here are also true of my dog. She isn’t what you’d ever describe as bullet proof…

Things that move independently but don’t have a motor (ie balloons) and things that should move but are static (ie statues, people standing stock still) seem very common.

My friend’s traumatized rescue is scared of roller skates and skateboards. That’s quite a niche one.

@Twilight7777 … the banana of doom. Why?!

We had a border collie and once at Christmas time a paper chain fell from the ceiling when we were watching TV. He jumped and scattered out the room so quick you'd think he's been booted up the bum or something!

Ahahaha. Dogs are so ridiculous. This thread is really making me laugh.

Our dog is scared of windscreen wipers in action. Going for a walk by a road when it’s raining can be tricky. He is also scared of people standing very still, and of long cardboard tubes or really anything long and cylindrical so those long swimming pool floats for example. Also piles of laundry that suddenly appear that weren’t there before.

Embarrassingly, my dog is scared of people dressed out of the ordinary, doing unexpected things or acting out of the norm. So that started as people in fancy dress or certain hats or hoods, sitting in unexpected places, someone lying down somewhere unexpected (man fixing his car lying underneath it on the drive etc), teens acting up and dancing or play-fighting in the street. She’s better now with those things after lots of socialisation. However, the one thing she cannot handle is very (seriously)obese people and the way they walk. She’s a disgraceful size-ist who woofs and jumps about when she sees someone really big.

It’s easier to pretend to those people that she’s just people reactive. Am not proud of this!!

I have no idea, it was quite high up that I didn’t even think she’d see it! God knows what went through her mind 😂

In no particular order:
-Buses
-Cans of Fizzy pop
-those plastic board things that they lay over the pavement when doing repairs
-Hot water bottles

When ours was around 9 months old a firework when off near the house. He was in the kitchen and it gave him a fright and he lost his footing scampering out the kitchen. Terrified of hard floors ever since. Not bothered with fireworks, will happily go a walk on fireworks night.

He also never barks, except on the rare occasion we come across one of those temporary road signs that are traingluar black plastic and we approach from the back where it is just a black shape. Then he goes mad, barking and jumping around and won't go anywhere near it, not sure what he thinks it is.

The sound our bedroom ceiling makes at night (almost silent cracking as things adjust when house cools).

The sound the radiators make when the heat comes on and, because of that, the sound of the boiler starting up.

Children
Fireworks
Thunder
Eastern European men

Men with hats on, cyclists on shared pathways, prams.

Oh and the dishwasher door left open at her bedtime. It opens automatically a few inches when it finishes. It can stay like that any time in the day when she strolls in and out of the kitchen ...but bedtime ...no way!!! Door must be closed. 😱🐕‍🦺 I wonder if she thinks a burglar is going to make his/her way into the house via the dishwasher. 😁🤣🤣🤣🤣

The sound of someone blowing a raspberry! I guess it maybe sounds like growling to dogs or something?

Alpacas! For a dog scared of pretty
much everything when he arrived, he’s a chilled out kinda chap now, but alpacas are still bloody scary apparently

@katmunchkin our dog barks at wind turbines if they are on the tv, in fact, he doesn’t like anything that goes round!

He has to warily walk round any big leaf that falls on the ground in the garden! When we are out and about he just pees on them

My feet. She will leap away from them - often towards me but has never worked out they are attached to me!
Apart from when I have just put body lotion on or cuticle oil on my toes and then apparently they are no longer scary but delicious and must be licked at all costs.
She is an odd little dog 😂

The Buddha statue in my mother in laws garden 🙄

Shopping bags. Apart from our own ones , which when I bring inside her nose is straight in there.

Farts, including her own, if she didn't dash off she would give me a look and I'd have to apologise to make it ok even if it was her that let rip. Was not in the least bit bothered by fireworks, gunshot, heavy machinery.

Feathers !!

I love this thread my dog is usually pretty solid but the things that do scare him are so random -
Sheep (used to be cows and horses and he got over it but we don't see sheep as often)
Fake animals
Kids on people's shoulders
Flies (never used to be an issue - we stayed somewhere with loads of mozzies and both got bitten to bits and now he's terrified poor boy)
Morris dancers (this is a recently discovered one)
When something scares him he doesn't bark he usually jumps 3ft in the air, then crouches as low to the floor as he can and hides behind me very dramatically 🙄

The printer
Bins
The bin lorry
Random people occasionally, no rhyme or reason to that one
The cat
The hairdryer
The shower
The stairs

He's a wimp. There's more I'm sure.

Cats. I have had to pick him up ( small dog thankfully) and carry him past a cat on the footpath as he wouldn't go around it.

Balloons!
hairdryers, vacuums
the sofa cleaner left a long black hose on the floor and she wouldn’t go past it,

We’ve had her since 9 weeks and has never had a negative experience with any of these things