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September 9, 2009

When we last spoke about The Scary Kitchen Window over the sink, the one that has the nerve to slide side to side when the others go up and down, I had resigned myself to never opening this window again in Lilly’s lifetime — another 10 years, give or take. Even as our customized Relaxation Protocol work continued for weeks in 2008, I’d given up on using the window as trigger/stimuli examples because it broke my heart to see Lilly flip out. Essentially, I stopped paying attention to the window at all, and so did she for going on nearly a year.

Our behaviorist increased Lilly’s twice daily dose of alprazolam from .5 mg to .75 mg when she learned at our last meeting that Lilly continued to have several noise-related fear issues. Of Lilly’s two behavior medications, this one specifically targets noise reactivity and sudden fear episodes.

Rather than return to the Relaxation Protocol set-up, however, I simply started opening the window over the sink while Lilly was eating her dinner in the kitchen. It seemed to me that using the window as a trigger had somehow poisoned the more formal training situation, which I began to believe meant we’d never overcome the window that way.

Remember, for Lilly, evening is often much scarier than daytime. I wish we knew why, but we don’t. So, after early success opening the window during meals in the morning, I switched to dinnertime with some success.

We’re not quite ready to declare victory, but the worst fear behavior I’m seeing is this: Lilly stops eating. She looks at me and the window, then resumes eating.

I’ve tried opening the window during non-meal times, and in those cases, the worst that happens is that Lilly retreats a few steps before responding to my offer of a snack with caution. Typically, I ask her to take at least a few steps toward me and the open window to earn her food.

***

Summer Winds
The benefits of having access to this window include a nice evening breeze. I doubt I’ll do justice to my nature descriptions the way KB does, but here is my best attempt at explaining the winds around here.

Most of the time during the day, during the summer, any winds we get come from the West (downslope). BUT, in the evening, when the hot air down in the city gets enough height and oomph, it spills over the mountains from East to West (upslope). The result? We have nice breezes coming from the East at night.

The fastest way to cool off our house in the summer is to open a couple windows on the East side of the house as well as a couple others elsewhere, and voila! we have a comfy house with a pleasant breeze.

Weather geeks can read more here from a local meteorologist about what different winds mean around here for moisture, etc. Since we’re on the East side of the Continental Divide, what he says about Denver-area weather applies somewhat to our situation.

These breezy summer days are quickly coming to an end, though. And, come winter, the winds most often howl from the North and West. When we get big storms, they do indeed come from the East (as an upslope storm).

About the Author Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related.

I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

  1. I love this blog. I am a dog lover (we have a retired racing greyhound)and she is everything to us (as was our first). I am excited to visit your site more often. I love the care that goes into your posts.

  2. I’m glad to hear Lilly is less bothered by the window. Of course, DG knows so much about behavioral issues and how to approach them…her methods are so interesting to read. Good luck with whatever works for you.

  3. Dog-Geek makes an excellent point. I was being sloppy by pairing the window with meals in a backwards way.

    Even though I read about this set-up in helping B overcome fear of cars starting, I’d forgotten about Dog-Geek’s Magic Food Bowl Trick.

    Thanks for the reminder. We’ll give it a try.

  4. Sounds like great progress! To really counter-condition the scary window, I would open it immediately before each meal, rather than during the meal. The sound of the window should predict the good thing: window opening means my dinner is coming.

    When I work on counter-conditioning sound sensitivities, I like to use the dog’s food bowl, because the sound of kibble falling in the bowl is already has a very strong positive association. If it was me, I would be standing with the dog next to her bowl, holding a bag of kibble, and I would have my husband handle the window to free me up so that my timing can be more immediate. When I signal, he moves the window, after which I immediately drop a fistful of food in the bowl. Once she has finished that handful, I would signal again for the window to be moved, and repeat the process until she has eaten her whole meal’s worth of kibble. If she is retreating more than two or three steps before coming back to the bowl to eat, you may need to start farther away, or move the window less. Once she starts to make the association, she will looking at you expectantly to drop the food when the window is moved – and then you can move the bowl a little closer to the window and repeat the process.

    We used this process to get Z over dozens of noise/motion fears. The first several took a while, but then the process went faster and faster as he learned how the game worked.

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