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Location: Surrey
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 4,420
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I've just read about a study that showed no significant improvement with Clomicalm so it did give me some food for thought, I'm looking up other medications - I've seen Elavin/amtriptyline mentioned for SA too. I know that there are some sedative-type meds that are best avoided (sedate the body but not the mind) but have very limited knowledge on them really so I'm hoping the vet can give me some good starting info and I can do more research while waiting for the blood test results. He's probably the vet I trust the most as the practice really, I was going to specifically ask for him but happened to get offered an appointment with him anyway, he's very open to trying new things and doing research on conditions he's not familiar with (e.g. a diabetic degu I took in, or one of my rats with an usual thyroid tumour) so I'm hopeful that I'll get a good, balanced view on the various types. Will add fluoxetine to my list too..
I had a local trainer go through exactly what I was doing and give input, I am debating getting a behaviourist to actually come out (Clever Dog Company in particular) but I asked the trainer if she thought there was much else I could do and she didn't think so. Nicole Wilde's book is pretty indepth and I think the only major change I could make is not ever leaving her - but I've looked into local daycare and even if the cost wasn't prohibitive, I can't find anyone who accepts large breeds, they seem to be home-based and take small breeds only. Plus with Casper's reactivity/dog issues, I'd probably not be able to put him into daycare and I'd be worried about creating issues with him (though he's generally fine when left on his own). I'm not sure if kennels would work as it is the lack of human company that distresses her, she's got canine company with Casper, the boarding kennels I walked rescue dogs at didn't seem to have people hanging around that often, just during cleaning out and feeding times really. I guess it would at least prevent the association of being left at home but I don't know if it would cause more distress/anxiety in general
I've only taken 1 days leave at work this year so could take some time off but probably limited to maybe a fortnight - any longer would need sorting with colleagues and tend to be done as one-off arrangements because they're a real faff. I did have two weeks of working from home which I think helped but obviously it's only two weeks, so I'd like to save taking time off for the most effective point of treatment, e.g. if I start her on medication.
I'm recording her daily and some days do have potential triggers in a way - for example, I noticed a pattern on the day that the recycling boxes are collected, although we leave the boxes as far from the house as possible, sometimes they're put back on our doorstep for some reason and this has made Casper bark as well (he makes quite a convenient trigger-marker!). If Kiki's disturbed by something like that then it can change her mood from relative calm (calm for her - she's often not appearing totally relaxed) to anxious and then will spend the next 5 minutes winding up to pacing, scratching at the door and then eventually it can lead to barking.
Other days there's no apparent trigger, she can just seem to be on edge most of the day, seems to maintain a threshold of pacing for quite a while and then can eventually escalate to whining, then barking, then sometimes spinning.
The most frustrating for me are the days she can appear fine for hours and then suddenly winds herself up into a frenzy. She seemed to be getting better with these days, e.g. she'd only escalate from pacing to whining and then manage to calm herself down (lots of yawning, stretching, etc.) and would go back to sleep, but last week she just seemed to not be able to get back from the first spate of barking and was back to being on/off barking most of the day like she was initially.
Shutting her in the back part of the house makes her a lot worse though, so not convinced it's the noises at the front of the house winding her up. And I know that there are sounds throughout the day even when she's not pacing/barking so not convinced it's (entirely) noise-related, e.g. next door's dogs are quite vocal and are kenneled outdoors, the noise was near-constant a few weeks ago when the new pup was taking a while to settle in, and we only had a few days of Casper being unsettled by the noise before him and Kiki got used to it and they pretty much ignore it (and the dogs weren't outdoors until recently, so the behaviour started way before that). And there have been quite a few days where I've found mail on the hallway floor but neither dog has shown any acknowledgement of noise at the door all day.
I'm going to put one of the videos on my phone to show the vet just so he can see the behaviour for himself, I don't know how much dog behavioural experience he has (or other vets at the practice) as it's not something I've really gone to the vets for, but could be some extra input. He can, at least, do a referral to the Clever Dog Company if I go down that route.
Originally Posted by
smokeybear
So I guess what I am saying is better to rule it out then twiddle and twaddle and finally find out later?
Yes, that's my thoughts too really. Unless the blood tests flag up something that could be obviously causing the issue, I'm pretty sure I'll go for the thyroid testing anyway (or maybe even if the blood tests do show something, just to rule it out in addition to that). I'm pretty sure that she won't be distressed by having a blood sample taken so I'm thinking that there's no real negatives in having the tests done (but will wait and see how the first lot of taking blood goes)