Owner Has Hilarious Method to Try to Stop His Dogs Being Scared of Vacuum

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

In a TikTok post, user @weishaarfam wrote, "We saw something that said if you discipline your vacuum your dog won't be scared of it anymore." The accompanying video shows Cody Weishaar, 30, yelling at a vacuum cleaner to help his dogs be less afraid. With the two Staffie mixes watching on, Weishaar began disciplining the appliance, calling it "bad" and telling it to "stop that."

It may be an unorthodox tactic, but Weishaar, from Texas, told Newsweek that he'd seen a video in which a dog behaviorist said disciplining an inanimate object could help dogs be "less fearful of it."

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

"They don't like the vacuum, so we decided to try and discipline it 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 were attempting to scold the vacuum."

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

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 it the best way of helping a nervous dog?

Caroline Spencer, a certified dog behaviorist at ProDog Raw, a dog-food company, told Newsweek that owners should avoid copying this tactic as it isn't a positive way of helping dogs overcome their fears.

"This is not an empathic way of helping a dog," Spencer said. "In fact, a dog seeing or experiencing a person's anger will only make them fear the human more, and it will have no impact when it comes to solving their fear."

The American Kennel Club recommends speaking to a vet about the best ways of treating a dog's anxiety and figuring out the possible triggers. Strategies to help ease a dog's nerves include counterconditioning to change its response to triggers or desensitize it from them.

By slowly and repeatedly exposing a dog to whatever scares it, plus rewarding positive behavior, its anxiety may become more manageable over time.

On TikTok, users joked about the dogs' rection to Weishaar disciplining the vacuum, with one writing: "The tails! They loved this vengeance."

"Vacuum is public enemy #1 now," another added.

Another commenter said, "What if you tell the vacuum it's a good dog and give it positive reinforcement so the dogs thinks it's good and not bad?"

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