Spooked by white

Something white and maybe large must have recently scared Koda because in the last 2 weeks or so he has been really spooked by anything white, it's so odd ! OH said he was walking him and turned a corner and Koda cowered and would not stop staring at a white box on the opposite side of the road, he slowly walked him over to it but he started really shaking so he moved him on. One day recently a white 4WD was parked up the drive behind us and he was sat up staring at it intently, very on edge. Another day he was tearing around inside the garage looking for his toy and out the corner of his eye saw a white box stacked against the wall and ran very wide very fast past it. Haven't quite worked out what has caused it. During the day he is mostly inside as OH works from home, so I can only think it's something that has come into the yard when we've been out but we have 9ft high fences all round so it would have had to got over that and tbh I haven't even seen a cat anywhere near here. Any ideas on how to help him settle would be appreciated, thank you. For now we are trying small things like wearing white tee's, or walking him past white objects inside & out etc. Thanks

Have you tried food? Put some food on a white sheet of paper or, if that's too much to start off with, as near as he can cope to eat it. Same with the cardboard box, etc. And if white cars continue to be a problem, again place some food near one. You'll then probably find he rushes over to anything white, drooling!

That's a good idea as he loves food, thank you I'll give it a go.

try kitchen towels too bek and place food on top of it

outside try keeping to shaded areas hen as much as possible, no easy think the sun will affect his eyes is there a vest you could use to reflect the sun for him

Has he seen a ghost Perhaps yes some food would be a good idea to try near white things xxx

I don't know, it's so weird !! Trying to move solid white things closer to his food as a starting point, thought we were making progress a little until OH came out wearing a white tee

just persevere bek poor koda

How do you feel about trying clicker training, Bek? If you can teach Koda to nudge a target to get a treat, you could then use that to get him to target things that he's unsure of.

Actually tbh I've bought one but never used it. I really only have weekends to do such but it has been on my radar for quite some time so it's def not a no.

Give it a go and see how you get on. You'll probably find there are odd time during the week that you can slip in a quick session too, literally five minutes here and there is all you need.

Find yourself something to use as a target, anything stick like that's not pointy or scratchy. A wooden spoon works well, for example. Clicker in one hand, target in the other, treat pouch to the ready... stick the target out and it's a fair bet he'll sniff it. Click the second he does, regardless of whether he touches it or not, and give him a treat. Repeat a couple of times and he should get the idea that nosing the target gets him his treat. No cheating, nothing other than nosing the target will get the treat. He might try other things but just wait till he tries the target again.

Practise that till it's solid and you should be able to then point the target towards anything for him to get his click treat, and soon you should be able to get him to target other things, maybe using the target to guide him, including things that bother him.

There are some videos of both Millie and Chaos in the gallery somewhere to show you how it works.

I reckon Koda will love it!

That's superb, thank you so much Liz ! I am going to start this on the weekend, as you said even if it's just a few mins every night or two initially it all helps. Thanks !!

Video please, Bek!