Border collies are a breed known to struggles with sound sensitivity, often though to be due to their genetic background and selective breeding as working sheep dogs. There is considerable research examining sound sensitivity in dogs, and it is thought that up to 50% of dogs could be fearful of certain sounds. Several studies include border collies in their study population, and have discussed why collies or herding breeds in general may be more susceptible to sound sensitivity than other breeds (see “what causes border collie sound sensitivity?“). Other research has examined causes of full or partial deafness in collies (Platt et. al., 2006; Yokoyama et. al., 2012). However, there is very little research looking at the types of noise sensitivity that I am seeing in collies as a border collie behaviourist, working with hundreds of collies each year.
We know that sound sensitivity in border collies can look like trembling, panting and attempting to hide from very loud environmental noises such as fireworks, gunshots, thunder, aircraft and very loud smoke/fire/house/car alarms. However, I have also observed that many collies will react to everyday sounds such as tapping, chopping, their caregivers coughing or sneezing, the noise of Velcro or Sellotape, and similar. This article will look into this a little more, and examine why this might be.
Loud environmental sounds
Research examining noise sensitivity in border collies has so far only examined their reactions to the following loud environmental sounds:
- Fireworks
- Thunderstorms
- Gunshots
- Low-flying aircraft
- Loud engine noises
- Smoke/car/house alarms
A study in 2020 by Salonen et. al. found that out of 14 breeds studied, border collies were in the top half of breeds with the most intense reaction to fireworks and gunshots, and Overall et. al. in 2016 found that of the three breeds examined (GSDs, Australian shepherds and border collies), more collies were fearful of loud environmental sounds that the other two breeds. McCobb et. al., in 2001, found that out of 69 dogs studied, 40% of herding dog breeds were diagnosed with “thunderstorm phobia” as opposed to 21% or less of other breed groups.
Many collies with sound fears in this group aren’t just a little afraid – they experience real emotional distress. Hydbring-Sandberg et. al. in 2004 found that sound sensitive collies had increased levels of several physiological variables when they were exposed to gunshots, proving that gunshot fear can cause serious extreme stress to border collies, The authors suggested that gunshots may even cause pain.
Overall’s study found that collies that were scared of thunder, fireworks and gunshots were most likely to tremble, pant, pace and attempt to hide. This is in comparison to other breeds who may also toilet in the home, vocalise, or become destructive. In severe cases, I have seen several collies refuse to leave the house, even to toilet in the garden, or they may bolt away from owners on walks.
Everyday sounds
Anecdotally, I have found that collies in this group are very sensitive to everyday noises. Using sound classification developed by Rogers et. al. (2000), these sounds include:
- Human sounds: coughing, sneezing, blowing nose, clapping, baby crying
- Household sounds: doors, blinds, curtains, washing machine
- Kitchen sounds: chopping, stirring, kettle, frying, popping, food blender
- Stationery sounds: squeaky pens, Sellotape, Velcro, tearing or cutting paper
- Kitchen noises such as pepper mills, chopping, grating, stirring, microwave
- Tool sounds: sawing, hammering, drilling, stapling, can opening
- Water/liquid: pouring water, water bubbling, water draining
A very interesting study by Savel and Legou (2024) looked at owner-reported sensitivity of dogs to various noises in the soundscape of most dog’s homes. They found that the frequency with which dogs hear specific sounds does not affect the likelihood of the dog finding the sound aversive. The most frequently reported everyday sounds that dogs found aversive were sneezing, clapping, shaken plastic bags, “beep” alarms, power tools, garden hose, rain on surfaces, wind gusts, hair dryers, ceramic dishes breaking, metal object dropping, glass object handled or breaking, corks popping, door slamming, phone ringing or water flowing.
In cases I have worked with, collie reactions to these sorts of sounds are mixed:
- Trembling, salivating, hiding, avoiding the item (rare unless with louder items such as hairdryer food blender)
- Jumping, lunging, attempting to bite the noise source
- Barking, pacing, spinning, not avoidant
I’ve observed that collies that are subjected to a number of these triggering sounds one after another, their arousal can increase and they are more likely to spin and bark when they hear the sound. They may even jump up and nip the owners which can bruise and break the skin, or redirect onto other household dog.
Sound sensitivity in border collies – Short poll
To try to investigate whether the sound sensitivity in border collies that I am seeing is representative of the UK collie population, I set up a brief poll in a border collie Facebook group (The Border Collie Geek – Dog Training Support for Border Collie Owners) on 10th February 2025. This group helps border collie owners with training problems, so a committed sample of owners with a knowledge of training and behaviour techniques, or the desire to learn more about these techniques (not representative of the general border collie owner population).
Owners with sound sensitive collies were invited to take part in the poll and were asked which of the following groups of sounds their dogs respond to:
- Environmental sounds; thunder, fireworks, gunshots, aircraft, loud engines, smoke alarms, weather sounds (rain, hail, wind).
- Everyday sounds: tapping, chopping vegetables, Sellotape, metal tape measures, food processors, clicks on washing machines.
- If their dogs responded to both, they checked the both category
The answers were checked to ensure that the same individuals were not ticking more than one category. The graph below shows that, of the 137 collie owners that responded, 67% of collies were sensitive to environmental noises only, 14% were sensitive to everyday sounds only, and 19% were sensitive to both sorts of sound.
Two further polls were carried out in the same Facebook group to determine how collies respond to the different sound groups.
1. Environmental sound reactions
On the 10th February in the same Facebook group, owners of collies that react to loud environmental sounds (thunder, fireworks, gunshots, aircraft, fire alarms etc) were asked to tick the behaviours that their dogs perform, from the following options:
- Tries to hide
- Pants excessively
- Stays close to caregivers
- Paces
- Barks
- Defecates or urinates
- Becomes destructive
- Trembles
- Whines or howls
- Shakes toys
- Bolts to safety car/home
55 owners responded and there were 293 votes. Owners were able to add extra categories if needed. The results are similar to the findings by Overall et.al., 2016, which found that collies which were scared of thunder, fireworks and gunshots were most likely to tremble, pant, pace and attempt to hide. Seeking the caregiver was not an option in the Overall study.
It’s interesting that, similar to separation anxiety, I have observed anecdotally that collies are less likely to toilet in the home, vocalise or become destructive when they are severely anxious. These are the behaviours that cause owners the most problems, which means that collie owners may be less likely to seek help about their dogs’ fears and phobias than owners of other breeds. Sound sensitivity is often linked to separation related behaviours (Blackwell et. al., 2013) so this is potentially a welfare concern.
2. Everyday sound reactions
Owners whose dogs react to everyday sounds were invited to respond to a poll in the same Facebook group on 13th February. Owners were asked to note if their dogs reacted in any of the following ways to everyday noises such as tapping, chopping veg, Velcro, Sellotape, metal tape measures, coughing, sneezing, washing machines, food processors etc:
- Trembling, salivating, hiding, avoiding the item
- Jumping and lunging, trying to bite the item
- Barking, pacing or spinning, not avoidant
47 owners responded and there were 50 votes. The dogs’ reactions were very different to the everyday sounds compared to the loud environmental sounds.
73% of sound sensitive collies were not avoidant of everyday sounds. Instead, they were moving towards the sounds or appearing to become highly aroused by them. Only 27% were avoidant, with fear-related behaviours: hiding, trembling and salivating.
This ties in to the behaviour I see in the collies I work with. There may be several reasons for this. Fearful reactions to very loud environmental sounds are adaptive, and a rational reaction: if an animal doesn’t respond to the sound, and it is indeed a threat, they are at risk (Blackwell et. al., 2012). To our dogs, very loud environmental sounds may be more scary because dogs don’t understand where the noise is coming from, which means they can’t escape effectively. And collies can’t move towards environmental sounds because, in most instances, they are unable to locate the source.
Grigg et. al., 2021, asked 386 dog owners about their dogs’ reponses to everyday sounds such as smoke alarms, smoke detector chirps, microwaves, vacuum cleaners and various “beep” noises. 50% of owners reported that their dogs barked. Other behaviours were related to avoidance, including retreating, pacing, whining, hiding, trembling, panting, howling or salivating. In the same study, the writers looked at YouTube videos of dogs reacting to noises, and found that jumping on the owner, lunging and retreat were significantly associated with low frequency continuous noises (microwaves humming or vacuum cleaners) as opposed to high frequency intermittent noises (smoke detector beeps or chirps). Trembling was significantly associated with high frequency noises. Sadly, 46% of the reactions in the videos showed amusement and concern was only expressed in 18%. The author acknowledged that behaviours such as lunging and barking at low frequency sounds “may stem from emotional reactions other than fear”.
The following table shows sound pressure levels of a range of sounds from firearms to rustling leaves. It’s important to note that this is the range that humans can hear – dogs have more sensitive hearing than us. However, it nicely summarises how 70dB plus sounds come under the loud environmental sound category that causes mostly avoidant collie behaviour. And anything less than 70dB are more everyday sounds and cause less avoidant behaviour. So quieter sounds elicit different responses.
Taken from Barber, A.L., Wilkinson, A., Ratcliffe, V.F., Guo, K. and Mills, D.S., 2020. A Comparison of Hearing and Auditory Functioning Between Dogs and Humans. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 15.
So why do some collies react to everyday sounds in this way?
1. Predisposition:
There are a range of factors that can cause sound sensitivity in border collies in relation to all types of sounds:
- Genetics
- Selective breeding
- Treatment of the mother before and after the birth of the pups
- Limited early exposure to noises
- Traumatic responses
- Pain-related sound sensitivity
You can read more about the causes of sound sensitivity in this article: What causes border collie sound sensitivity?
2. Associations: the sound means something else.
In this scenario, the sounds themselves aren’t the issue, it’s what the sounds mean. For instance, car doors slamming and human voices outside the window mean there are strangers outside. Collies are very affected by movement, so stirring a cup of tea may mean that the caregiver will then walk back into the lounge, this could trigger anticipation and an excitable reaction to spoons in cups. I have seen this several times.
3. Hearing disorders
Recent research is starting to focus a little more on sound sensitivity in humans as well as animals to these more familiar everyday household noises, looking at conditions that cause these sorts of reactions.
Hyperacusis is a condition in which everyday sounds are perceived as excessively loud or painful, and is known to occur in rats, hamsters, Guinea pigs and canaries (Hayes et. al., 2014) as well as humans. There is evidence that it may occur in dogs (Barber et. al., 2020).
Misophonia is a recently defined condition in humans, in which certain everyday sounds, unique to the individual, cause anger, extreme annoyance or disgust. A study by Chin et. al. (2024) looked at this in more detail in dogs. Could this be what is causing the appearance of annoyance in collies that jump, lunge and bite the sound source? Both misophonia and hyperacusis can be hereditary so is this something that collies as a breed are more prone to?
It’s important to know that in humans, tinnitus commonly exists alongside misophonia (Dibb and Golding, 2022) and hyperacusis (Hayes et. al., 2014). These conditions can also co-occur with OCD (Begenen et. al. 2023), which in dogs would manifest as abnormal repetitive behaviours, which, again, I have seen anecdotally in collies with these sorts of everyday sound sensitivities. We therefore need to think about how other conditions such an tinnitus may be affecting our collies.
4. The acoustic startle response
The acoustic startle response is a reflexive response to a sudden noise, causing an immediate increase in arousal. An extreme startle response would be a dog responding to normal stimuli with an abnormal level of intensity, and taking longer to recover and return to the behaviour they were previously performing.
Individual collies could certainly find sudden loud noises in an otherwise quiet household startling, but there is no evidence of any predisposition towards this in collies in general. In a study by Mackay et. al., 2023, collies were found to be one of the more resilient breeds, in their ability to persevere with a task despite being startled. Bhowmik et al, 2024, found that an extreme startle response is unlikely to be inherited, and more likely due to the dog’s upbringing and environment.
5. Pain
Grigg et. al., 2021, pointed out that smoke detectors, particularly, pose a risk to our dogs. They are effectively designed to alert humans, and wake them from sleep if needed. The high frequency required to achieve this is thought to be potentially painful to dogs whose hearing is much more sensitive than humans at this frequency.
Anticipation
Finally, another feature that often accompanies sound sensitivity to everyday noises in collies is the tendency to anticipate when the noise may occur with heightened arousal. The dogs can see from their caregiver’s actions when the noise may start, and when the dogs finally hear the noise, their reactions are more extreme. They also frequently start to learn cues that precede the sound, that mean that the noise is coming, and start to react to these as well. For instance, Bo, a 1 year old collie who was eventually diagnosed with a chronic pain condition, initially started to react by barking, lunging and spinning to the click of the electric firelighter her caregiver used to light the fire. This started to backchain to the owner moving the fireguard to light the fire, and eventually became a problem whenever he approached the fire.
It can become even more problematic when caregivers respond to the dog’s behaviour with anger or frustration, shouting at the dog, or attempting to restrain them. Although this is a completely understandable reaction, it adds in another dimension of anxiety and/or frustration, heightening arousal further, so that the eventual reaction to the noise is even more intense, with the history of owner reactions built in.
The following video shows Pablo, a one year old neutered collie responding to kitchen sounds – chopping, utensils being moved and the sound of water when taps were turned on.
Conclusion
While collies are particularly susceptible to fear in relation to loud environmental sounds such as fireworks and thunder, they are a breed that commonly reacts with heightened arousal to everyday sounds such as tapping, sneezing, scraping and clicking. Research is ongoing to understand why some breeds of dog are more prone to these conditions, which will be helpful in defining breed-specific interventions.
In the meantime, it is important not to use punishment (which includes raised voices) to try to stop the dog from performing the behaviours: this is very likely to worsen the behaviour. I’ll be following up this article with treatment options for sound sensitive border collies asap so keep an eye out!
References
Barber, A.L., Wilkinson, A., Ratcliffe, V.F., Guo, K. and Mills, D.S., 2020. A Comparison of Hearing and Auditory Functioning Between Dogs and Humans. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 15.
Begenen, A.G., Aydin, E.P. and Demirci, H., 2023. A comparison of clinical features and executive functions between patients with obsessive compulsive disorder with and without misophonia. Dusunen Adam, 36(2), pp.90-102.
Bhowmik, N., Cook, S.R., Croney, C., Barnard, S., Romaniuk, A.C. and Ekenstedt, K.J. (2024) Heritability and Genome-Wide Association Study of Dog Behavioral Phenotypes in a Commercial Breeding Cohort.
Blackwell, E.J., Bradshaw, J.W.S. and Casey, R.A. (2013) Fear responses to noises in domestic dogs: Prevalence, risk factors and co-occurrence with other fear related behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 145(1), 15-25.
Chin, Joy T.Y and Poh, Samantha X.L and Fernandez, Eduardo J. and Hazel, Susan, Turn the Volume Down: Noise Sensitivity in Dogs. 2024 Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4782180 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4782180Dibb, B. and Golding, S.E. (2022) A longitudinal investigation of quality of life and negative emotions in misophonia. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16.
Grigg, E.K., Chou, J., Parker, E., Gatesy-Davis, A., Clarkson, S.T. and Hart, L.A. (2021) Stress-Related Behaviors in Companion Dogs Exposed to Common Household Noises, and Owners’ Interpretations of Their Dogs’ Behaviors. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8.
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McCobb, E.C., Brown, E.A., Damiani, K., Dodman, N.H., 2001. Thunderstorm phobia in dogs: an Internet survey of 69 cases. J. Am. Anim. Hosp. Assoc. 37, 319–324.
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