terrified airdale terrier

Question
Hello , please can you help me ? this is very strange and it has happened about 5 times in 1 year. I have an Airedale terrier , love her and she is a good dog... hyper but loving animal..listens well to me. Again today , out of the clear she just freezes and looks scared and backs up with tail tucked under her body. No barking involved... just scared to death won't even cross past the middle of living room to go out... she will not let me comfort her, just keeps backing away and looks at ceiling or middle of room, like scared then crouched down low like tracking something... She is not scared of animals so even if it was a mouse or something...this would not put her into a frenzie..she keeps pacing and pacing back and forth and backing up and kinda looks like she is looking at something and frightened ! I got scared myself because i thought wow, maybe something or someone is in the house...I have checked all over and nothing... this will go on for hours like 5 or 6 hrs. I have even tried to get her to go out the back door and she won't even get near... She loves the outdoors...! we go for walks for about 3 to 5 miles a day... but like i say ,,this has happened about 5 or 6 times since i got her as a puppy.....now she is 1 yr and 3 months old... Please can you give me any guidance into what would cause this... is she having some kind of doggie hallucination...??? or a disease in her brain..?? she will not even let me hold her she just keeps moving and brushing by me in circles or backing up with tail completely under herself...  Thank you and hope i get a speedy reply..... Mare

Answer
Hi Mare;
Now this IS strange!
I know of no reason that is universally accepted that would explain this.
I think it would make me think there is more truth to spirits being among us than is widely believed.
Supposedly, animals and chindren can see them, and animals are supposed to be more keenly aware of them.
I think behavior like that would do more to convince me the psychics are telling the truth.
I havehad some strange situations that have convinced me our loved ones that have passed can be around us, but I have never had anything happen that makes me believe ghosts that lived in my house before, are still there, but I have an open mind.
There is just too much we don't know.
I think it if were a live intruder, you would see or hear something, and if they are there ro harm you, it would have hapened by now.
Kinda leaves a spirit or ghost as the only possible answer.
I watch Sulvia Browm on the Montel show, and I must say, some of the things I have heard her say make perfect sense to me.
I'm as reluctant to say they DO exist as I am to positively say they DO NOT exist, but I have never seen or heard of a dog behaving this way, especially at such drawn out occasions. It would certainly give me opause to wonder.
For the dog to refuse to be comforted or consoled by you, is especially strange to me.
If it were brain damage or an emotional illness in the dog, I would think it would be happening on a regular basis, and the incidents would come closer to each other over time.
It is just really something that I have never heard anything like before.
The looking into the mddle of the room like they were seeing someone or something, would really set my neck hairs on end.I think I would have to think the dog was seeing something I couldn't see.
Fincing someone who is legitimate who can deal with the paranormal is very chancy, as there are so many that CLAIM to be able to talk to the dead etc.
I like to know more about someone's expertise before I listen to them seriously.
I know there is much that we don't understand, because when anything is wrong with someone close to me, a certain feeling comes over me, and I know to start calling and see who it is. It has been right every time, so there is much more we could sense, if we hadn't been conditioned out of it, and children and animals have not ben.
My 7 year old grandson has told his mom and dad several times that his grandmother ( My daughter-on=law's mother who dies when he was 3) has come into his bedroom at night and leaned down and kissed him, and then went to his little brother's bed and kissed him, and then left.
Who knows?
There is nothing I can suggest that you do.
Talk with your Vet about it.
Maybe it is not that unusual, and just something I have never run across.
I wish I could help you.
One consolation, according to Sylvia Browm, they cannot and will not hurt us.
Of you find a solution to this, please let me know.
Charlotte