Why does your chihuahua bark on walks? What is driving this behaviour? They seem to go out the door looking for trouble and because they are over aroused and anxious, they bark at everything they see or drop into head down displacement sniffing. (When sniffing is stress related and they can’t disengage). The reason your chihuahua barks on walks because it’s what they did yesterday! What your dog experienced yesterday informs how they react and behave today. The memories they have of previous walks, especially if they were a scary or worrying event.
It’s the same for people. If, when you were young, a scary clown jumped out of a cupboard in the dark, the chances are you would never forget it and avoid clowns for the rest of your life!
Flash bulb memory
We all have memories of events that had a huge emotional impact. These memories are called flash bulb memories. Memories accompanied by a huge emotional response. Often stress.
In phycology a flash bulb memory is defined as,
A highly vivid and detailed ‘snapshot’ of a moment in which a consequential, surprising, and emotionally arousing piece of news was learned.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/flashbulb-memory.html#Examples-of-Flashbulb-Memor
For a small dog like a chihuahua these memories or events can be something so simple we didn’t even see them occur or realise they happened.
For example, you take your chihuahua for a walk and a car runs over a loose grate in the road, a motor bike revs, or a bike whizzes by them or in the garden when the kids next door kicks a football over the fence. This event that seems trivial to us will startle your chihuahua and frighten them.
You first start to notice when you take your chi for a walk and they won’t walk down a particular street anymore or they react to a bike when they never used to. Now they start to predict scary events, they think they see a shape that looks like a bike or hear a noise and they become worried and reactive. Now your chihuahua barks on walks at everything they see and hear because they start to predict this stress, and it escalates. They go out for a walk and instantly drop into an ‘avoidance mindset’ and bark to keep these scary events away. It can track back up the chain of events that surround the walk, like the harness and lead.
Learnt as puppies
Often these unhelpful flash bulb memories are picked up as puppies. Owners are excited to take their chihuahua for a walk as soon as they are vaccinated, they put a harness on the dog and trot them up the street. But a chihuahua puppy doesn’t have the skills and experience to deal with this environment and every noise and event is going to be scary.
There is also a narrative around socialization and the puppy must experience all sorts of events before they are sixteen weeks old. This includes introducing them to other dogs or taking them to socialization classes. Again, the puppy is unlikely to have the skills for this and all that will happen is your dog will become a barky reactive mess or shut down. Taking your chihuahua puppy to classes is one way to guarantee that your chihuahua barks on walks at every other dog they see.
With puppies you need to guard their optimism and be mindful of the situations you are putting them in. It’s more productive to work on confidence at home and gently introduce the great outdoors in tiny steps. You can get a free guide to socialising your chihuahua.
How to repair the damage
You can’t change the environment and things will happen, and you can’t keep your chihuahua wrapped in cottonwool and never take them out. What you need to do is grow a robust confident little dog that can cope. You do this at home with confidence building games and exercises, but first you need to undo the damage.
Unpicking the stress around a flash bulb memory can be tricky and time consuming and you may need the help of a concept trainer/ behaviourist.
But there are some steps you can take to try and undo the damage yourself.
It’s essential you don’t keep pushing your chihuahua through the experience daily. You may be hoping they will just get used to the event, they won’t, and they are rehearsing the stress.
Don’t try and correct the behaviour when it’s occurring as you will just add more emotion into the situation and the dog is not in the headspace to learn.
Never use gadgets like water pistols, E-collars or anything that adds an unpleasant stimulus into the situation.
Make sure your chihuahua gets plenty of downtime to rest and do pleasing dog stuff like chewing, licking and scavenging. Read about creating calmness.
It might be a good idea to ditch the walk altogether to allow the dog to decompress and break the cycle. Replace walks with games in the garden.
Play confidence building games at home to slowly introduce different noises, textures and experiences. Hunting in old boxes for food, playing games around novel objects.
Introduce micro walks to start rebuilding your walk. Micro walks are tiny walks punctuated with games. They may only be to the end of the drive. You are rehearsing success rather than stress and anxiety.
Need more help with chihuahua Behaviour?
There is a lot that can be done to help a dog that has got themselves in this kind of emotional state, we teach you how to grow calmness and rebuild your walk by building your chihuahua’s confidence in our award-winning course at Chihuahua School.
You can join our email series on ‘Better Walks with Your Chihuahua’ and get helpful training advice direct to your inbox.
Discover more from Chihuahua School by Chihuahua Power
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
