Without more history, I can only guess at the cause of the fears unfortunately but my best guess would be that she had a series of traumatic events during her fear imprint periods while growing up.

Fear imprint periods occur at several points during the normal growth stages of a pup. The first occurs between 8 and 11 weeks – wonderful timing considering most breeders send their pups off to their new homes at eight weeks of age. The second fear imprint period usually occurs around seven months of age but can range anywhere between 6 and 14 months.

This is a vital time in a puppy’s life. They are beginning to see and experience the outside world and sometimes that can be overwhelming if not downright scary for their developing brain. They react to common sites they see each and every day but instead of ignoring it like before, they suddenly become absolutely hysterical over the item. They are also realizing that humans are not all part of the pack and will suddenly become fearful of strangers. Strangers in hats, sunglasses, backlit, or carrying something odd shaped suddenly send your pup over the top and it becomes a matter of getting them to understand that the person is actual a human even if the sunglasses make them look like a fly on steroids.

How we react to their commotion is part of socialization. One of my very best friends is an incredible dog trainer and he tells an amazing story of his dog having a meltdown over, of all things, a toilet. Now this toilet was the same toilet he had seen every time he entered the bathroom when they brought him home at eight weeks old. However, this day it happened to be the devil spawn and my friend the trainer could not understand what all the fuss was about. Then it dawned on him and he sat down. The pup shut up immediately, gave him a look of ‘oh, jeez, I didn’t recognize it on its own’ and sauntered off to have a drink out of his bowl. The problem never reoccurred at least not in the bathroom.

Now, picture what would happen if the same situation was handled differently. The pup is in a state of hyperawareness as he is learning to really ‘see’ his surroundings for the first time. What would have happened if he was home alone with this terrifying object for hours on end? Eventually he would have gone and hid, exhausted, with no satisfactory conclusion to the mysterious white porcelain object. Or what would have happened if an inexperienced owner got angry with the noise and pulled the pup out of the bathroom and slammed the door? Same thing – he would have been forever terrified of the toilet! And that is even without the mysterious flushing noise it makes!

The reason I am going into such detail here, Lisa, is that often the fear we see in our dogs has been imprinted in them during this developmental stage of their life. In some cases, we may have no clue a traumatic event ever happened if it occurred when we were away from the dog. The fear of water/shower could have been something simple like being given a visit to the groomer as a young dog for a bath that traumatized him completely – you may never know.

The bad news is, it can be almost impossible to move the dog past this fear when so much time has gone by. I teach my dogs what the word ‘friend’ means so that if I see them getting themselves in a tizzy over someone or something, I say ‘look, Fido, a friend!’ in a happy, excited voice. If the owner does not react to the fear, the dog will usually take their cue from them and relax.

There is tons of information on fear imprint periods on the web and I am happy to go into more details if anyone is interested. This is a vital part of raising a happy and well-adjusted pup so reading up on this information beforehand can help you both through some frustrating times!

Ann