Pets

[wurwolf]

Yeah, I definitely will. He was in a foster home for about two months before we got him and he did great, but I found out later that the woman who fostered him never really went anywhere. She just stayed at home all the time, and so this probably never came up before. So if they adopt him out again they will definitely need to put him in a home where someone is home all the time.

[k1]

I had a bad case of thunder shirt after some mexican food once.  Wait. I read that wrong.  Nevermind.

[LucasM]

I am sorry to hear that.   It is a shame that he can't remain calm without someone home (and valium long-term is not an option).

If you do have to take him back to the shelter, take pictures (or e-mail them) so they can see JUST how bad it gets.


[Hopefully this won't imply a lightness to my feelings about this, because I know how difficult it would have been to take Lucas back after I'd lived with him for a while, but maybe this might take the edge off for you...

  If you submit the house damages to your insurance company, be careful your adjuster isn't dyslexic... they may simply dismiss the claim seeing as how it is "An Act of Dog".]

[wurwolf]

That's awful. Really bad separation anxiety it sounds like. If you can't crate him...I have no idea what to do.

Have you tried the "thunder shirt" thing? That's supposed to help with anxiety. Perhaps that would help.

We are at our wit's end as well.

I've heard of the thunder shirt but we haven't tried it. It sounds like quackery to me, and even if it does work I don't think it would help a dog this mental.

I am sorry to hear that.   It is a shame that he can't remain calm without someone home (and valium long-term is not an option).

If you do have to take him back to the shelter, take pictures (or e-mail them) so they can see JUST how bad it gets.


[Hopefully this won't imply a lightness to my feelings about this, because I know how difficult it would have been to take Lucas back after I'd lived with him for a while, but maybe this might take the edge off for you...

  If you submit the house damages to your insurance company, be careful your adjuster isn't dyslexic... they may simply dismiss the claim seeing as how it is "An Act of Dog".]

That's a good idea, I will probably take some pictures this weekend and send them to my contact at the shelter. The woman who was fostering Chance just loved him and he did well at her house, and she expressed an interest in keeping him but, as Imrahil probably already knows, that's not how fostering is supposed to work.

APGIL took him to the vet this afternoon and I'm waiting to hear back before we make any sort of decision.

[Smoky]

Wurwolf, can you afford to invest in some dog training (or even just get a book about it - Victoria Stillwell is really good, she has a tv show too called It's Me or The Dog) and a pet sitter/dog walker to stop by so he won't be alone too long?

It sounds like both of those things would REALLY help. Good luck!

[wurwolf]

I'm not sure how much a dog trainer would be, and I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend the money. Still, it might be worth checking out. Not sure what kind of dog trainers we have in Lancaster county, or how well training would work on a ten year old dog.

Also he needs someone with him constantly. We can't even run out for fifteen minutes before the mayhem starts.

[Smoky]

Don't give up, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm sure things have been hard for him too so I hope everything works out. It's certainly worth looking into resources in your area. If you check care.com and sittercity.com there are a lot of profiles of petsitters in different areas and some of them have dog training experience. They also do some training at PetSmarts if there's one of those around you.

Here's an article by Victoria Stilwell on the subject of seperation anxiety: http://positively.com/positive-reinforcement/victoria-stilwell-articles/separation-distress-syndrome/

One excerpt reads: "Putting on a coat and exiting followed immediately by a return, allows a dog to see the trigger in a different light – the coat doesn’t always mean the owner is going to leave for a long period of time. Constant repetition over a number of days helps to desensitize the dog and departures no longer trigger a response. Time spent away is gradually increased until the dog is confident that the owner will always return."

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

Our dog Stormey was a very nervous, destructive dog.  We did the crate training.  We started putting her in just an hour at a time, with us home.  Then for longer periods.  After she calmed down and accepted it we started leaving her for half days, one of us would go home and check on her at lunch time.  We eventually made it to full days.

After a while she seemed to enjoy it.  Whenever you asked her if she was ready to go in her house she'd go in and lay down.

[wurwolf]

Wow. Okay, so this is blowing up.

APGIL took Chance to the vet yesterday because he's had a cough for about a month or so and it's getting worse, and on Sunday morning he coughed up some blood. Plus his nails needed to be trimmed, plus I wanted him to ask the vet about his behavioral issues and what we could do about it. And I'm just going to copy and paste the PM he sent me last night, because it pretty much tells the story.

The bottom line is he has something in his lungs. They took x-rays of him and there are several areas in his lungs that look like abnormal. Her first reaction is there's some sort of cancer there. But the x-rays and the blood tests they did here aren't enough to give us a definite answer. Here's the problem, the vet wants him to see a specialist within 7 days but the closest specialist can't see him until Jan 2.

It could also be some type of infection. Bacterial or fungal. If it is that, as a precaution, she's put him on antibiotics. Best case scenario is it's not cancer and the antibiotics will actually make him better. She also gave him something to help with the coughing.

They also did a heartworm test. He's negative. He does, however, have or has had lyme disease. That's why she's given him antibiotics.

She also said that she could give him something with steroids if we can't or won't see the specialist. But that weakens his immunity. If it's cancer, that could make whatever type of cancer ii is worse. If it's an infection, it might have a better chance of helping. But again, at this point we can't see the specialist within the time frame she's given us so we have to decide if we want him on the stronger medicine.

Some other things: He is slightly anemic. The tremors and twitching could be pain indicators so he could have been sick this entire time we've had him. She gave us the 7 day time frame because of the progression of the cough from just coughing to actually coughing up blood. He did get his nails trimmed. He might only be 8 years old. And any medications for his anxiety would take 4 to 8 weeks to take effect. (And right now, hon, the behavior is the least of my worries.)

I asked them to email us the actual report and they said they would. She also said that if you can call tomorrow after 12.

So... yeah. I mean, we just never expected this. And of course I'm not going to send him back now, it would be a death sentence for him.

I'm going to talk to the vet today, and then APGIL a little later on, so we can decide how we're going to proceed.

[goflyblind]

[Tripe]

[Bob]

Ugh, wish I had some good advice or thoughts, but not everything in life has good news.

Like others, sorry about this.

[Tripe]

Yes that's really horrible, hoping for the best there.

[wurwolf]

Yeah, it's just way way more than we expected. I am really not sure what to do. My initial thinking is to keep him on antibiotics for now and see where he is in another week. If he's doing much better, it's likely that it's an infection. If he's doing much worse or the same, then it's likely cancer. And if it's cancer, I just really don't know what to do. Do we spend thousands of dollars we don't have on a dog we've had a few months, and even then there's no guarantee that he'll actually live a long and healthy life after that? So APGIL and I need to talk about this, and talk to the vet, and try to figure out what the hell we're going to do now.

[LucasM]

My God, I am so sorry for the three of you.  That sounds horrific, and such an emotional blow to have so much going on, with such painful and stressful feelings on top of it.  To have emotions run from the frustration (and probably anger) at what he's been doing to your new house to the anguish of having a potentially lethally-sick four-footed family member in such a short time, with all of them now active at once.

I wish there was something I could do to help.