by WastedSpace » Fri Sep 08, 2017 7:22 pm
Does anybody have any advice or ideas for an anxiety-ridden dog during monsoon season?
We can't leave her alone because she destroys anything and everything if it's storming outside. She's scratched up our doors (which have specific patterns carved into them, so it's important we keep her from doing this more as we plan on moving in a few years), eaten a whole cabinet door, torn up carpet, eaten any food she can reach, eaten rugs, etc. Even if we close all the doors to side rooms, she still rips stuff up.
We used to be able to give her a benadryl to calm her, but it seems to have no effect on her for a while now. As well, she's on several meds to help with pain in her leg, so we have to be careful of meds interacting now.
Tried a DIY thundershirt. A couple times. She did not like it at all.
Even though we got her to see her crate as a safe space that she now sometimes goes to when it storms, she can't be left alone, even in the crate. The last time we left her alone she ate through it. Heavy-duty plastic crate and she ate the whole side off (and ripped up her mouth in the process). Tried two different fixes and she ate through both of them. We switched to plastic crates when she ate through the metal crate she had when she was younger. And we really can't afford to just keep going through crates. =\
And I can't even take her out to do anything. I'll admit, we didn't do a great job training her when she was younger (partially because she was my younger sister's dog but my sister didn't believe in training animals and specifically worked against us in training and partially just because we didn't really want a dog so we plain didn't put in the time and energy to really training her like we should have). But she tends not to like men and she doesn't like dogs her size or bigger. She's typically pretty well behaved but she does bark and growl at people/dogs she doesn't like and if someone she didn't like made a sudden movement, she would likely bite. And lots of people unleash dogs here, so I can't even sit with her at a park or something. And I can't go walking with even in a leashed park because her because she pulled a ligament in one of her legs and isn't supposed to walk on it.
All I want to do is go walk around for PoGo right now, but even though the sky is clear and blue, it thundered twice, so I can't leave the dog, who is currently cowering inside next to me. And once my mom gets back from work, I'll need to fix or help fix dinner, so I can't leave even when the dog gets another supervisor.
I feel bad enough for the dog not being able to walk, but I'm beginning to feel trapped here. =X I have trouble remembering exact years, but she's around 11 years old now and still going strong (aside from the torn ligament, really the only other sign of aging is her hearing getting worse). She's a mix with lab and something else we're not completely sure of. She's like a smaller medium sized dog.
So any tips? :< Should we put in the effort to up her training? How should we go about starting that?