- Joined
- Oct 17, 2017
- Messages
- 99
- Purraise
- 58
My neighbor has a giant Doberman. He/she barks at everything that moves every time it’s out in the yard to pee/poop. I like dogs but I’m not going to lie that I don’t like the neighbor for never doing much about training their said dog.
Well anyways, My cat has been alright with it for the past few years. Would even sit by the window undisturbed just staring at it. She recently associated a loud unrelated noise that spooked her with the dog barking outside and then went into redirected aggression mode. I’ve dealt with redirected aggression in the past (couple years ago she attacked my leg out of nowhere while excercising and vet helped me to figure out it was the construction noise outside causing stress. Once I moved her to a room with less noise she was completely fine. Construction has been long done for over a year now and and we hadn’t had any episodes since...until now).
I should note the dog is not barking directly at her. It’s usually barking at the car passing by or the other dog across the street and the blinds are partially closed.
Since I dealt with redirected aggression before, I have a protocol and usually just get her snack, walk slowly leading her to a room set up with her litter and water and keep her there by herself until she’s calm.
So she’s back to being herself on the most part but whenever the dog barks now she gets clearly anxious and just looks like one wrong move will set her off to aggression mode again. She starts being startled by every noise in the house, looks at everyone in the house like they are a potential danger, gets those crazy eyes like something is out to get her.
I’m going back and forth between putting her back into the room by herself when she’s clearly anxious and letting her out when she’s calmer.
I know it’s only been a few days and it’ll take some time for her to kind of be out of this state, But is there anything else I can do that would help her unassociate dog barking with danger? She also seems to be associating the window that the dog is closest to to be danger as well now and anybody who gets close to it will get scratched (my family member tried opening the said window yesterday to freshen the air inside and she ran up to her and scratched her).
She had made a little bit of progress in that she sat on my lap periodically while the dog is barking outside. But again, if anyone can suggest any way she can go back to simply being not bothered by barking I’d appreciate it.
Well anyways, My cat has been alright with it for the past few years. Would even sit by the window undisturbed just staring at it. She recently associated a loud unrelated noise that spooked her with the dog barking outside and then went into redirected aggression mode. I’ve dealt with redirected aggression in the past (couple years ago she attacked my leg out of nowhere while excercising and vet helped me to figure out it was the construction noise outside causing stress. Once I moved her to a room with less noise she was completely fine. Construction has been long done for over a year now and and we hadn’t had any episodes since...until now).
I should note the dog is not barking directly at her. It’s usually barking at the car passing by or the other dog across the street and the blinds are partially closed.
Since I dealt with redirected aggression before, I have a protocol and usually just get her snack, walk slowly leading her to a room set up with her litter and water and keep her there by herself until she’s calm.
So she’s back to being herself on the most part but whenever the dog barks now she gets clearly anxious and just looks like one wrong move will set her off to aggression mode again. She starts being startled by every noise in the house, looks at everyone in the house like they are a potential danger, gets those crazy eyes like something is out to get her.
I’m going back and forth between putting her back into the room by herself when she’s clearly anxious and letting her out when she’s calmer.
I know it’s only been a few days and it’ll take some time for her to kind of be out of this state, But is there anything else I can do that would help her unassociate dog barking with danger? She also seems to be associating the window that the dog is closest to to be danger as well now and anybody who gets close to it will get scratched (my family member tried opening the said window yesterday to freshen the air inside and she ran up to her and scratched her).
She had made a little bit of progress in that she sat on my lap periodically while the dog is barking outside. But again, if anyone can suggest any way she can go back to simply being not bothered by barking I’d appreciate it.
Last edited: