Our dog is terrified of bridges. How to change this??

[Catz]

She's fine with solid stone built bridges but has developed a fear of those metal footbridges that go across gorges with rivers under them.
As a pup/1 year old she'd happily cross the two where we occasionally took her for a walk but now she cowers in fear, whimpering with her tail between her legs. No amount of cajoling, promise of biscuits, me on the other side calling etc will change her mind.

I have a feeling this may be due to a friend, who sometimes walks her there, being a numpty and jumping around on the bridges to make them sway. However he denies this.
We've tried taking her to a different location with a similar bridge but she just will not budge.

I'm not going to drag her across on her lead as I don't think that'll help, plus she's 35kg of stubborn, not moving dog!


Any ideas how to reduce her terror?
Or are we just going to have to avoid metal footbridges?

[bexVN]

I think you are going to struggle. Fears and phobias can develop in dog up til the age of 2 and even then a learned behaviour due to association such as the one you've described can happen at any time.

It may be easier to avoid metal bridges but if this happens to be in an area you use regularly it can prove tricky.

Starting very slowly with lots of praise and reward can help so as soon as she starts appearing nervous, stay relaxed talk in a jolly relaxed voice to her and if she takes another couple of steps closer give her a treat and walk away from the bridge, next time see if you can get a few steps closer but never push her to go any more than she is willing to do herself, this will take time but it can work.

If positive rewards aren't working and you really need to do something then I know valium can be used to help with noise phobias (used a lot for firework phobias) it maybe possible to adapt this to help with her. This doesn't mean everytime she crosses a metal bridge she'll need valium first! but it can be used to get her over the fear with the final outcome being that she won't need anything. Valium is given at a dose so as not to sedate but to help the animal not care about the fear and also provides a memory blocker to the fear.

Anyway the above is just a suggstion and may not be necessary if problem an infrequent occurrence, however some fears do esculate so if she starts stretching this reaction to e.g. a stone bridge (which I know she is currently ok with) it would be worth looking into.

[dudleybloke]

bungie jump.

[turbolucie]

My chihuahua was terrified of bridges. He never overcame it. Luckily he weighed a few kilograms at most, so I can't help you I'm afraid

[Scraggles]

you can get muzzles for dogs, how about a mask so that the dog cant see the bottom of the very deep ravine ?

maybe a black bag with drawstring for the neck, with an end cut for the nose and mouth ?

[scirocco265]

I am sure someone will be along shortly to offer a lot more help than I can give, however, remember to reward confident behaviour and never punish fearfulness (although be careful not to reward fearfulness either).

I should imagine your dog shows anxiety before the bridge crossing itself(?), if so try some distraction techniques. If there's a field one or both sides spend some time playing a game, having a cuddle, practising some training with reward so your dog is happy, relaxed and thinking about something else initially.

If it's not possible to do these things, park your bum on one end and just sit for 5 minutes, then go back the way you came. You can then slowly build this up to sitting a foot onto the bridge, followed by 2, followed by 3...

[softtop]

I had a dog that disliked bridges, try holding cheese to distract them as you walk across.

[Mrs Grumpy]

Do you use clicker training at all? I think free shaping her towards and then over the bridge would work.

If not, you need to buy a clicker and condition the dog to it by doing nothing more than click and treat, click and treat, click and treat, etc, etc. That will make her learn that a click means a treat. Do it for abut 10 reps, three times a day for two or three days until she anticipates a treat after a click.

In essence, a click means three things:

• A treat is coming
• You have done the right thing
• The exercise is over (that particular one at that particular moment, not necessarily the whole training session).

If your dog is a bit sensitive, it may be an idea to hide the clicker in your pocket to deaden the sound a bit, rather than point it at her like a remote control

To free shape her to cross the bridge, it needs to be taken in tiny baby steps. I would start at a bit of a distance away from the bridge - before she gets too stressed out by it. When she looks towards the bridge, click and treat every time she looks at it. Do this for perhaps a few days. Then click and treat for a couple of steps towards the bridge and allow her to walk away again, etc, etc. The trick is not to go too fast, just a couple of steps towards the bridge and away again. Take it at a pace with which she is comfortable. It will likely take several weeks, if not months.

Hopefully she should be able to get nearer the bridge all the time before getting too stressed, then progress to putting a paw on and away again. Two paws on and away again. A couple of steps on and away again...

Let us know how you get on

[munroman]

We got a rescue dog years ago, he was ok until it came to bridges.

We did the West Highland Way, which has loads of them, he was even refusing to cross the little ones made of 2 railway sleepers with a gap between them over ditches! With 96 miles to do it was going to be challenging.

By the simple act of keeping walking a little, then getting some food out, he 'forgot' he was frightened and ran across to get the food.

He was a Lab cross, greedy buggers!

[thinfourth2]

Our black lab cross idiot is scared of bridges but not having an excess of braincells tends to forget.

So he runs halfway across and suddenly remembers and stands shivering

[Jasandjules]

thinfourth2 said:

So he runs halfway across and suddenly remembers and stands shivering

He might be scared of heights.........

[tenex]

I'm afraid I take a harder line.
Go out with a dog and owner that will cross the metal bridge and just leave your dog behind if it won't follow.
Say nothing. I would imagine it will then be with you shortly,especially if you can go out of sight.
Works for me, on many occasions/situations.
If you fuss the dog fusses even more and what shouldn't be a problem becomes an issue.

[Catz]

I did cross the bridge and called her from the other side but she looked as though she'd rather jump into the gorge below and swim across the river so I decided that might not be such a great thing for her to do.

Thanks for all the advice we'll keep tackling the bridge problem. Thinking about it she's fine with low bridges so it might be she's scared of heights. It's not on our regular walk so it's not an everyday issue.