Anxiety in my dog of evenings

[lopes]

My dog is a female shepard/carolina dog mix. She is 13 and of an evenings she will lay at end of couch and will make noise to get me to sit by her on floor. If I am not touching her she get upset.

She also pants all the time. I keep a turbo fan on medium or high when I am at work blowing on her at all times. This seems to help some with the panting.

What should I do for her to help her be less anxious. She drives my husband nuts.

[Lena]

If you haven’t I would recommend reading through this thread http://pathwithpaws.com/forums/topic/article-on-dementia and also check out the article on dementia and the comments that follow it

http://pathwithpaws.com/blog/2010/02/01/dementia-and-anxiety-in-your-older-dog-what-to-do/

[chellparis1]

Hi,

  I am in serious grief right now. i euthanized my 11.yr. old maltese last week.  I;ve never heard of anything like this.  She had a lot of physical illnessess. almost died a few times thanks to medicine allergies.  her biggest problem was skin alergies.  When I finally got them cleared up,  she would bark all night, and i would go out to see,what was there and try to comfort her.  if i stopped her, she would bite me 4or 5 times. by latching onto me.  i would never hit her, so it was hard to get her off.  i am all scarred. Back to the issue, vets keep telling me i spoiled her, and she needed to be alpha,  I loved her more than anything.  i adopted her at 2 months.  i could handle all of it except the biting.  People would look at my legs and say she was going to kill me. She took all her pills, and she was fine on the outside.  it was only in the house and mostly at night that she bit.  she also loved to lay on the patio at night, or so i thought.  The thundershirt worked, and when i took it off after 8 hrs, her skin was all errupted.  i just kept scolding myself, at what kind of moron i was.  i have spent a fortune,  which is all secondary,  I blame myself for everything.   If i tried to groom her she would growl and snap.  I think i caused the whole thing by picking at her too much.  please help me. sincerely Michelle

[Lena]

Michelle,
That sounds very difficult but please do not blame yourself. I don’t know what her history was before you got her but it sounds like she was maybe separated from her mother and siblings early and never learned proper bite inhibition. Or if she was with them long enough it may have been that genetically something was not quite right. I work with a little dog similar to her, little llasa. He was rescued but he is a big bitter and often it comes out of the blue for no reason. He has lovely people who care for him and do not abuse him. If it happen later in her life it was probably related to dementia issues and she just was not completely there in her head. Most dogs even with spoiling do not bite like what you describe and I have many little dogs I work with who are seriously spoiled and do not bite. There are certain breeds of dogs that have rage issues, i.e. Springer Ragehttp://www.essfta.org/english-springers/health-genetics-and-research-faq/springer-rage-syndrome/ , it may also have been that she had a similar issue. I’m sorry for your lost, it sounds like you loved her and did a lot to make her life with you as good as you could.
best wishes,
Lena

[chellparis1]

Hi Lena ,  Thank -you for that caring supportive answer.  i just want to add, that i did adopt her at two months,  and she never had a biting issue before her skin alleregies and infections took over at 10 yrs.  she did have hypothyroidism, and my doc said it was very high in the end.  She also had ear and eye infections.  Thank-you so confirming it dosent sound like my fault, i do love her so much, even though she is gone.  sometimes i feel the pain will kill me.

i’m not rligious but bless you.  Michelle

[chellparis1]

i’m sorry for writing again, i just had a question, if it had been the case ,that genetically something had been wrong,  wouldn’t it had show up much earlier.? or am i mistaken?

 

[Lena]

My guess is that if she didn’t have an issue when she was younger that it was related more to dementia issues, also makes me wonder if there was a brain tumor possibility. Definitely if it did not happen when she was younger it was not a training issue or did it have anything to do with how you raised her.

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