How to get my GSD to stop startling me?

[alhale]

I have a 4 year old spayed female GSD. She’s a great dog most of the time, but she does something that is making me lose my mind. She can be dead asleep or just laying down and she will hear something (car door slam or sometimes I don’t think she hears anything) and just freaks out. She jumps up barking and going crazy. It startles me so bad that I scream, the cats get scared and try to run away. It’s miserable and I don’t know what to do. Currently when she does this- it triggers my fight or flight response- and I respond by yelling at her. I know that’s not helping, but my body goes into such a state of panic, I can’t help it. I’ll either yell at her to “shut up” or “go to your crate” and she’s just so amped she sometimes doesn’t listen so then I have to grab her by her collar/scruff and bring her to her crate. I’m at a loss of what to do. How do I stop her from startling myself and everyone else? I don’t mind a bark or two but she just goes from a 0 to 100 in a split second. It’s getting to the point that I’m just done, which is horrible cause I do love her. She’s actually supposed to be my ESA, but currently she is making my anxiety 10xs worse.

 

[souljaofgod]

@alhale To be honest, if you’re reacting like that, she might not be right dog for you. To stop her from acting like that you have to figure out why she’s acting like that. I agree with the other user that investigating together helps, but if you aren’t able to control your reaction, I do not see the situation improving. It sounds cruel, but just like you can’t help your reaction, your dog might not be able to help it either.

 

[vertanno]

@souljaofgod Yup, Agreed.

 

[alhale]

@souljaofgod I don’t have the startle response when she just barks normally. It’s when she just goes straight to 1000 and doesn’t stop when I tell her enough.

 

[souljaofgod]

@alhale Does your dog understand what “enough” means? Does she have an actual command to stop barking that you have trained her for? Does she follow that command normally if so? When you’re yelling, maybe you are encouraging the behavior as you are joining in on the ruckus which only amps her up more. You might be taking out exhaustion and frustration on something that doesn’t understand. If you are able to reward your dog when she calms down there may be a path to remedy the situation, but if you only punish her, you’ll just end up with a self-feeding cycle of frustration because the dog doesn’t understand. Even if you successfully trained her to follow a silence command, if she does not follow it in that excited state, the only option is for you to be able to control your reaction to be calm enough to remedy the situation. If your reaction is beyond your control, then the only thing in your control is whether to keep the dog or not. Maybe someone else can help in those situations or maybe the behavior will go away on its own, but if not you have to be prepared to give her up or put up with the extra anxiety (which seems counterintuitive to an ESA)