Pets Fearful of Your Vacuum Cleaner? Look No Further
In our highly popular “Ask GoVacuum” post about vacuuming your cat, we discussed the best vacuums available for cleaning your pet with a vacuum. Many pet owners who may wish to use a small vacuum to clean their pet may have a pet who is wildly afraid of vacuum cleaners.
I recently came across an article discussing how pet owners can help their pets overcome fears of loud noises. The example used as a training exercise, lucky for us, was training your pet not to be afraid of the vacuum cleaner. I will reprint the relevant part here. Enjoy!
For a noise you can control, like a vacuum cleaner, first put the unplugged vacuum cleaner in the middle of the floor and put a few treats around and on the vacuum cleaner. After your pet has eaten those treats, while you are next to the vacuum cleaner, call your pet to you, give her a treat for coming and give her a command and give her a treat when the command is performed.
Continue the command and treat process until you see that your pet is focused on you with the treats. For the next step, turn on the vacuum cleaner and continue issuing commands and giving treats to your pet as she is near the vacuum cleaner. If your pet does not come close to the vacuum cleaner after it is turned on you can gradually get her closer by simply calling her to you and giving her treats as you move closer to the vacuum cleaner. If your pet runs and hides when the vacuum cleaner is turned on, wait a few minutes and try again.
