This is probably going to get a bit long, sorry about that. I just want to give enough info...
I'll start by saying that Harry has never, ever showed any kind of severe anxiety. Sure, he's had stressful moments, but this is the first time I've ever seen him act this way. I'll relay the story and you guys let me know if I handled this right, and any other advice is very much appreciated.
This is what happened this morning. Like most of us, we have our normal morning routine. The dogs wake me up at around 5:30am, I let them out to pee, feed them breakfast, and we go back to sleep until 7am. Then I get up, shower, get ready for work, go downstairs and let them out to potty. Then we play for a bit before I leave for work. Sometimes BF is already gone to work, sometimes not. This morning it's lousy weather, so he slept in a little.
When I got out of the shower, I could hear one of the dogs whining on the other side of the bathroom door (turns out it was Harry). Both dogs were in the bedroom, BF was still in bed asleep, so it's not even like they were completely separated from their people. When I opened the bathroom door, Harry came bursting into the bathroom and was completely velcroed to me. Usually he lazes in bed while I get ready in the mornings, so this was not normal.
I finished getting ready, he was right on me the whole time. This is when I heard a noise. Apparently while I was showering, one of our smoke alarms downstairs started beeping to indicate a low battery (once every couple minutes, just one beep). You could hear it in our bedroom.
Harry, Sammy, and I went downstairs, and I let them outside to potty (this is when they usually go #2). Harry wouldn't go outside unless I came with him (not normal for him). Then he still wouldn't leave the deck, even though I kept asking him to go potty. So we came back inside. Harry was shaking, his tail clamped tight, panting.
The whole while I'm trying to listen hard to figure out which smoke alarm it was that was beeping. I finally found it...in the downstairs hallway. I grabbed a chair so I could reach it. I took it down, replaced the battery, put it back up. Problem solved, no more beeping.
This is pretty much how I handled the situation. When I found which one was making the noise, I pointed it out to Harry and said, "This is where the noise is coming from. It's not a bad thing, Harry. But it's bothering you, so we'll fix it, okay?" Then I talked to him through the entire process letting him know what I was doing. When I took the smoke alarm down, I let him sniff it (he wanted to, I wouldn't have forced it on him), he wasn't afraid of it, but it was quiet at that point. When I replaced the battery, I told him, "Ok, it's quiet now. Everything's back to normal."
I did all this very calmly, tried to have a reassuring tone to my voice, at the same time acting as if this was no big deal. I didn't coddle him at all, but I talk to him a lot, and stroked him massagingly. Then I went about my normal "fix my coffee, etc." Then instead of playing, we all three sat in the living room for about 10 minutes, so he could really hear that all was quiet and the scary noise was gone. He layed on the couch next to me, right up against my side, with Sammy on the other side of him. He stopped shaking while we did this, and was panting less.
By the time I was needing to really leave for work (I was already going to be late, but big whoop, my pup needed me), I took both dogs upstairs to the bedroom so they could be in there with BF. I told BF about it, and he was so sweet...he said, "C'mere, Harry, come lay with me." Harry jumped up on the bed and curled up with BF. He seemed okay with me leaving at that point.
When BF got into work an hour and a half later, he said Harry was perfectly normal when he left. He did go to sleep with BF for a little while after I left, and when BF got up, Harry was his normal tail-wagging, happy self. He finally went potty, and he even asked for some treats from BF. So it seems he's fine now, thank goodness.
So, guys, do you think I handled this right? Any advice if he ever gets like this again? Thanks!!