border collie cross kelpie whines at almost any kind of music!

My 2 1/2 year old border collie cross kelpie has an annoying behaviour where she whines at almost any kind of music! Television, stereo, radio the lot! Especially anything with opera or orchestra sounds! It used to be restricted mainly to those two but she now does it for ANY music, ie. ALL the adds on TV!! She lives inside as we don't have a fence yet round our house that we built 18 months ago and can't let her out on her own for fear that she'll wander off. So it is not an option to put her outside to remove her from the source. Even if she is outside and she can hear the TV she will still whine and howl! We have tried scolding and tapping her to discourage her but to no avail. It's driving me to desperation as I can't listen to ANY kind of music! There is plenty of advice for dogs whining for anxiety, but i have searched the web and can't find any reference to whining with music! PLEASE HELP!!!
Posted: 28/03/2009

REPLY: Whining at music
Interesting! I would explore the dog's hearing first - have a vet check her over. If that is OK, the explanation would be more towards attention seeking behaviour. In other words, she does not want you to listen to music, but wants you to be with her. It is not helped that we only hear about 20,000 decibels and she can hear double of that. So her hearing, especially as a BC is very sensitive, and therefore can be very reactive. I would work with something she really likes, eg pig's ear or similar, or her favourite toy and give her that when we start with some very low volume music. Raise the volume slowly over time when she is quiet, and lots of praise etc. A long exercise that requires lots of patience, but it is something you can desensitize her out of. If need be seek help of a good positive reinforcement behavioural trainer out - somebody that has dealt with this sort of desensitization process.
Posted: 29/03/2009