Owner has a hilarious way to try to stop his dogs from being afraid of heights

Dogs with nervous tendencies can develop fears of just about anything, like a doorbell or a bathtub, but one owner has gone viral after showing how he helps his pups overcome their fears.

In a post on TikTok, user @weishaarfam wrote: “We saw something that said if you discipline your vacuum cleaner, your dog won’t be afraid of it anymore.” The accompanying video shows Cody Weishaar, 30, yelling at a vacuum cleaner to help his dogs be less afraid. As Staffie’s two mixers looked on, Weishaar began disciplining the device, calling it “bad” and telling it to “stop it.”

It may be an unorthodox tactic, but Texas’ Weishaar said News week that he had seen a video in which a dog behaviorist said that disciplining an inanimate object could help dogs be “less afraid” of it.

He decided to try this tactic to see if it would work on his dogs, Bear and Ellie, and found that the hardest part was trying to keep a straight face throughout. Since posting the clip on April 21, it has received over 13.5 million views and 1.4 million likes on TikTok.

“They don’t like vacuums, so we decided to try disciplining him to see if that would help. I think it worked for Bear, but it definitely didn’t work for Ellie,” Weishaar said . “It was just for fun, and we couldn’t stop laughing when we tried to scold the vacuum cleaner.”

The video also received over 7,000 comments, with many TikTokers desperate to know if the move worked. Weishaar shared several follow-up videos showing Bear walking past the vacuum without reacting, but Ellie continued to bark at the device.

Dog owners in the comments section said they had also disciplined their vacuums or would try the method to see if it could help their dogs. But is this the best way to help a nervous dog?

Caroline Spencer, a certified dog behaviorist at ProDog Raw, a dog food company, said: News week that owners should avoid copying this tactic as it is not a positive way to help dogs overcome their fears.

“That’s not an empathetic way to help a dog,” Spencer said. “In fact, a dog seeing or sensing a person’s anger will only make them more fearful of humans, and it will have no impact on resolving their fear.”

The American Kennel Club recommends talking to a veterinarian about the best ways to treat a dog’s anxiety and determine possible triggers. Strategies to help ease a dog’s nerves include counterconditioning to change their response to triggers or desensitize them.

By slowly and repeatedly exposing a dog to what scares him, and rewarding positive behavior, his anxiety can become more manageable over time.

On TikTok, users joked about the dogs’ reaction to Weishaar disciplining the void, with one writing: “The tails! They loved this revenge.”

“The void is now public enemy No. 1,” added another.

Another commenter said: “What if you told the vacuum cleaner it’s a good dog and gave it positive reinforcement so the dogs think it’s good and not bad?”

Do you have funny and adorable videos or photos of your pet that you want to share? Send them to [email protected] with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pets of the Week lineup.