Today we found out something very strange. We had always wanted to train Pooka to play dead when we pointed a 'finger gun' at her and said "Bang, you're dead" EVENTUALLY. Well zachary was playing around while I was training her the normal stuff and pointed his finger gun at her and said "POW" and she got scared and ran. We tested this out a few more times (she will also run if you say BANG, but not if you say PYEW PYEW). She will run to a corner and hide and look pathetic like she did something wrong and is scared of being in trouble. It makes me so sad!!

I tried holding her and pointing at other items and saying "POW" and it freaks her out and now if I just saw "POW" without pointing, and saying it really sweetly, she gets real upset and runs for cover to cower.

We've had her since 8 weeks old and she's never lived with anyone else so I don't know where this traumatization could have come from! Does it sound like some other scolding word like "NO" or "BAD GIRL"?? She is 4 months now, isn't there a second stage of socialization where she afraid of lots of things? She is currently hiding in her crate, sleeping, most likely but I am upset and my husband is upset (cuz I'm not studying ;)) But I have promised her I won't say "POW" again and I wrote it on my hand.