I need some help trying to conquer this issue. My male GSD 15 months old, well socialized is scared of the water hose and sprinkler. As soon as he hears the tic-tic-tic of the sprinkler head, he shuts down completely. I am not sure, but something must have happend to him before I got him. I tried to use obedience to work him through the fear, but I don't want to use enormous amounts of compulsion unless absolutely needed. One idea I had was to stake him out in the yard and have the sprinkler throw water in the area until he quit fighting, but I am not certain it would work. This dog is perfect except for this fact, so any help would be greatly appreciated immensly.

Hi Frank,I had a similar problem with my female when she was 4mo old.I stupidly held her down after bathing and rinsed her off with a hose and nozzle using to much pressure,any way here is what worked for me.Since day one she has been a prey monster and I started at 8 weeks doing rag and sack work,by 5mo old she would rather lock onto a sack than eat so I just used that drive to get past her fear of hoses and nozzles.I have the 6foot wooden privacy fence on the back and what I did was go out back with a sack and teased the hell out of her with it keeping it just out of reach never letting her get it.Then I let her see me throw the sack over the fence into the front yard,then we ran through the house to the front where my son was waiting with another sack already tied to the water hose nozzle with the sprayer on low,as soon as we came out my son was shaking the sack and I was telling her "there it is get it!" she jumped off the porch and tore into her sack and my son pulled back on the hose making it a tug of war.It took a while before she realized that the sack she had in her mouth also had a nozzle with squirting water attached to it too,but she wasn't about to let go and lose her sack and she just set her feet and dug in that much harder.After that I would always use the sack tied to the nozzle and now my problem is whenever she sees me washing the car or doing anything with a hose she goes into drive and wants to play,but you get my point.If you can find a way to use whatever it is your dog is crazy about before it even has a chance to think about being scared it might work for you too,hope this helps.

I completely understand what your saying, the problem with mine is that he loses all drive when he either hears the sprinkler, or the spray of the water. It's not that big of an issue, except that I cannot work him at all when they are running and unfortunately that is all the time (just tilled and reseaded the back yard).

I feel your pain. My Labrador, of all things, has a water hose aversion as well. If he sees me watering, he high tails it back into the house.

Couple of suggestions.

Could you use a different sprinkler that doesn't make the tic-tic-tic noise, since it seems to be the sound that he's reacting to?

OR

Could you make a recording of the sprinkler, and start playing it inside the house at very low volume, where it's barely audible and he's not reacting fearfully, while you work him inside? Over time, just increase the volume in teeny tiny increments so as not to be very noticeable, and always always feed him, train him, play with him, etc., while you're playing the recording. Using a portable tape/CD player so that you can place it in different parts of the house during this process would be good too. Of course, by the time you work him through this process, your new grass will probably be established and you won't need the sprinkler on all the time anyway. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I'm not crazy about the staking him out idea. I think that if he's so afraid at this point that he loses drive, "flooding" him (forcing him to be in the presence of the scary thing) really has the potential to intensify his fear to panic proportions. Not pleasant for dog OR human.