Very sudden odd behaviour. Any experience or advice?

I've recently joined this forum purely for this problem that we have encountered with one of our dogs.

Dillon is a Patterdale Terrier/Whippet cross. We re homed him from a family who had hit hard times and we are his fourth (and final) home.
He's not had the best start in life. Not to mention all the homes he has had, he was attacked by a postman in a previous home and beaten quite badly and he also suffers with epilepsy. To this day, we don't know whether the epilepsy is genetics or a result of the beating. We did manage to gain contact with one of Dillons brothers owner, as their dog also had epilepsy and he unfortunately died.
Dillon is on epilepsy medication and it controlled very well. If he doesn't take it, the fits occur weekly.

So that's a bit of background (I'm not sure if it is relevant or not).
Over the last 2 weeks, he has almost retreated in every way.
He will hide and sleep in and under things at every opportunity he gets. My husband built a den under our stairs for our dogs to sleep in, so that they had somewhere warm on a night (our house gets quite cold). It essentially looks like a kennel, it has a little hole at the front for them to get in and their beds are inside. Dillon will spend all day in there. Previous to this, he would lay with us on the sofa or lay by our feet. This has stopped completely.
He has also developed some sort of fear to going in our garden, so the minute we ask the dogs if they need to go out, his tail goes down and he runs in to his den or hides under a bed. Before this, he would jump up and down and bark or scratch at the door. Yet he has no problem with going out on a walk and gets very excited when he sees his lead.
So on an evening before we go to bed, we let the dogs out for one last toilet visit and he doesn't do anything except stay by the door and shake.
When we wake up in the morning, we have poo all over our kitchen. If we leave our bathroom door open, he will do it by the toilet (very clever but not what we want!)

I have contacted our vet and had him checked over. He has been given the all clear in terms of health. He is eating and drinking fine. They suggested that something could have happened to put him off going outside, but as far as I am aware, there is nothing. We live in a very quiet area and behind our garden, we have a 12ft fence and huge fir trees, so nothing can get in to our garden.

My husband and I are at our wits end with it. We have no idea what to do and how to stop it. My husband stood outside with Dillon for an hour 2 nights ago, just to give him some reassurance and encourage him to do his business, but he did nothing except sit by my husbands feet.

I'm hoping that this story will be familiar to someone else and they found a solution or that someone can offer some advice as we seem to have hit a brick wall!

How old is he?

How long have you had him?

Think back to when this started then at any activity that took place around that time.

Is he light sensitive at all, ie is he worse if the room is light?

He's 5 years old and we've had him almost 2 years.

The only change in circumstance that I can think of is that my husband was away for a while and he has come back, but when he got back, we had a few days of Dillon behaving normally. This started after the event.

As for light, I don't think he is light sensitive, in terms of house lighting anyway.
Outside we have a security light and then 3 high brightly lit lights, like street lamps but brighter.
The only thing he doesn't like is having his photo taken and we think its to do with the flash.

Which medication is he on? Only some anti-epileptic drugs can affect some dogs' eyesight after a while, and it could be that the bright lights you have outside [and the camera flash] can be causing him some distress.

Hello Chloe poor little chap clearly something in the garden has scared Dillon . My guess is it is related to something which happened in his past.
Dogs associate 'things' they encounter with past events which have caused them to be fearful, this can be a sight, sound and even a scent. It can be very difficult to find the trigger for a dogs sudden fear.

One option is to contact a behaviourist, you will need a referral from a vet and I would go for one belonging to the APBC ...
http://www.apbc.org.uk/apbc/memberlist


I am not a Behaviourist just someone who has worked with dogs for many years
including one which was very fearful and hid just like Dillon, I will make some suggestions which may help you .
The first thing I would do do to take Dillon for a short walk on the lead last thing at night preferably to an area where other dogs have been. Their scent and the exercise will prompt him to relive himself so you can be pretty sure he is 'empty' when you go to bed. If he is fearful of the garden he won't go there anyway and will just hold himself until he can go in a 'safe' place.

I hesitate to suggest this without being there because I would play this by results. I would block off the den in the day and try making a comfy dog bed in corner away from the traffic of feet. Throw/hide bits of chicken in there to make it attractive for Dillon to go in and leave him to explore it without making any fuss, no word no eye contact . If he is very upset at being unable to get in the den I would open it again without any fuss .
If Dillon is so fearful he has to go in the den I would give him lots of praise whenever he comes out. Also try sitting on the floor with pocket of chicken pieces giving them to Dillon gradually with lots of praise and gentle strokes under his chin and chest (a not so vulnerable area ) so coming out to be with you starts to become attractive to him

If you have other dogs you will need to separated them so Dillon can get the treats in the bed and 'floor time' in peace.

There are things you can do to help Dillon become less fearful of the garden but it can be a long slow process so I think it is better to tackle a couple of problems for now. Also you may decide on a Behaviourist who will gently lead you and Dillon through his fear..

Thank you for your replies.
It all helps.

We have thought about contacting a behaviourist. Our vet mentioned it and I know we can do this as part of our pet insurance too.
We are actually moving house in 3 weeks time and going back to a familiar area for Dillon.

We had also discussed about blocking the den off for him, almost making him be with us. We have been making sure we shut all the upstairs doors as he was toileting in the bedrooms too if he couldn't get in the bathrooms.

He is on the epiphen tablets. He was prescribed 90mg (so 3 tablets a day) but it was making him urinate a lot, so they reduced it back down to 60mg. It still keeps the fits at bay, so we're happy enough with that.

I will also start to do an evening walk for him. There are a lot of dogs where we live, so most areas will smell. He's just incredibly fussy where he goes. I'm sure he must have been some sort of royalty in a past life!

Ah you say you are moving, Have you been packing a lot??? That might have upset him, he may have been through a bad experience when moving before or he might feel unsettled with the whole stress levels that must be building in the house getting ready to move. He may be unsure that he is coming with you, as we don't know what he's been through before this it could be a reason??

I think Mini has covered most things, so I just wanted to wish you good luck with Dillon. It is so frustrating not really knowing the cause of something like this.

Does he hide away more when the curtains are open in the daytime (ie natural light coming in) than at night?

Does he do it more in 'bright' rooms than in the darker ones (depends which way your house faces, ie my living room faces north so is never in really bright light, but kitchen is south facing so is often flooded with light)

I too think it might be related to the security lighting coming on outside at night, but you haven't said whether he acts like this during daylight hours when asked to go out in the garden, in which case, this theory goes out the window.

I also agree about the packing, it unsettles them, we moved last year and the more boxes that started appearing the the more furniture that started disappearing unsettled my dog a lot.

You don't know what he's been through before, and it could well be, that once those boxes appeared, he was sent off to a kennel poor boy

Good luck with him, if you can manage to take him out for his quick wee somewhere, that'd be good, it'll at least break this cycle that's going on now.