Things that go bump in the night......?

What a night we had last night...virtually awake every hour or so....

Muffin has always been the type of dog to easily be spooked by loud noises, bangs, thunderstorms, fireworks or heavy rainfall on the roof. She was even spooked by clouds, when she lived in the Middle East - well, we didn't see too many of those, except maybe one or two over the winter months, so I suppose that was understandable. By the way, she's fine about them now thankfully, which is just as well.

I digress....back to the story.... numerous times during the night she would start to do her gruffing (which although is only quiet has the amazing ability to get your attention and drive you to distraction) She usually just heads under my son's bed when the eebeejeebies set in, but his door was firmly closed.....he's not daft.

I couldn't work out what was spooking her periodically. She'd kick off then settle again, but unfortunately this happened throughout the whole night. At one point my OH got up and watched the second half of his UK football team play their match...well, he was awake anyway!

(This by the way is a normal activity in our household during the UK football season. The joys of having your team play on the other side of the world and in a different timezone).

Anyway, finally still wide awake, we actually heard a loud ding! Off she went in a tizzy..... We realised at last that it was the sound of the acorns falling off the Oak tree outside and hitting the vehicles parked underneath. Even the ones landing in the road and pavement made quite a noise.

Now the problem is how do we desensitize her for the next few months and the thousands that will fall ....