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@patsylee As an aside, first off, I think it’s so wonderful that you work with rescue birds. :) It makes me so incredibly angry that people get animals only to improperly care for and traumatize them. But I am glad there are people like you who lean into healing those animals and demonstrate...

@christianextremisttopkek Congratulations on your new furry family addition! Similar boat with my new dog and I. She’s older and not antisocial exactly, she just doesn’t care about affection. She’ll humor me petting her and she does enjoy it, but she rarely asks for attention. It’s also weird...

@bumbledee absolutely agree. Working with SA makes you functionally a prisoner of your home. I think the extent of how much you have to revolve your life around an SA dog to keep them safe can be mind boggling to people. My dog controlling my life isn’t because I was a ridiculously overbearing...

@marlyn9852 Thank you. She was all at once the most wonderful and challenging dog I’ve ever had. It wasn’t always horrible. She was the smartest dog I’ve ever met, perhaps too smart. She taught herself to open the front and back door, open cabinets, dispense both water and ice from the fridge...

@christianextremisttopkek I can only imagine that work environment would bring up so many painful things. Dissociation is a funny creature and I’m notorious for my blind spots in processing, and while I did feel traumatized through my entire time with P on a pretty much daily basis, the...

@christianextremisttopkek Thank you. I do historically have a PTSD diagnosis from a rocky childhood, and I really did feel like I was experiencing a new and specific wave of PTSD over this. EMDR is a great idea. It helped me so much to process and be able to carry, but not obsess over, my...

@dphxi I would have to agree with your theory although do note I’m wholly basing that on my own experiences. P was definitely a culmination or a result of many things, but I think her genetics was a big factor. I later learned the litter she was born into was from a backyard breeder - when I...

Hello. This is long and rambling and nobody is obligated to read it. I adopted an 8 week old puppy, and two years later she was euthanized for severe separation anxiety and growing aggression, and now I feel like I have dog PTSD and don’t know had to interact with my new dog. I know some people...

@lilymaid I’m so glad to hear you’d dogs fears became less with time and effort. What a brave pup!! I agree that people who immediately discount BE are often not thinking of the animal’s quality of life. P was not a healthy dog. Her terror was real. I think anyone who thinks BE isn’t humane...

@stephcooper46 I’m sorry you went through this too. Your dog was lucky to be loved by you. Yep. It’s really horrible. Can’t tell you the amount of emergency vet visits we had because in .02 seconds of alone time she managed to hurt herself in a major way. On one occasion P. bilaterally...

@csanders0520 Thank you. It taught me a lot. Before I went through this I was, unfortunately, one of the judgy types about BE, rehoming, and so on. I fell into the camp of folks that thought roughly the same as that TV trainer, “no untrainable dogs, only untrained people”? Turns out...

@aristeas Thank you. It felt the kinder option compared to others, at the end. Rehoming was not an option. I like to think now she’s feeling no more fear. It warms my heart your mom and family has done so much to embrace that dog and give her a safe place to land and be loved as she is. Can...

@lostheart Thank you. I enjoyed staying home with her too, but even that didn’t mitigate her fear. She was never a happy or relaxed dog. Thankfully, my new dog is doing so well, and I’m working with a trainer too, which is helping me to realize that her actions are just normal for a dog, not...

@log49 It makes me happy that the meds and protocols can help other dogs find a middle ground with alone time enough that they have a decent quality of life. SA is such a hard thing because even at the best of times it’s often one step forward, multiple steps back, and a clumsy dance. Two...

@log49 I have to agree that sadly something just was never quite right with her. Your puppy sounds like she shares some of P.‘s SA quirks. It’s a hard road and anybody walking it has my utmost empathy. I so relate to the shower comment. P also would stand on the other side of the glass...

@susa In retrospect there were many many many parallel dynamics and undercurrents between life with P and life in my rougher younger years, and the ways having a dog like that can be triggering are pretty vast. Thank you for validating this. I think I never let myself linger on the magnitude...

@serge282 She definitely was genetically predisposed. My friend has her littermate and they both have the same behavioral problems, although her dog is more reactive, where P was more SA-oriented. Both got worse with age. To compound that, they were weaned too early and separated from their mom...

Hello. This is long and rambling and nobody is obligated to read it. I posted this also in /reactivedogs but I posted this here too because although I may get hate, I haven’t really heard many stories like mine, and maybe this will lead to compassion for people who are forced to make these...

@futuredreamer Thank you very much! This is exactly what I was looking for. I emailed Debby!

I very recently adopted a new dog who has become increasingly territorial within the home, not with people, but with the other dog. New dog, L, is 8 and had a tough life. Resident dog, P, is 4. They’re both females. P doesn’t engage with the new dog, if anything tries to avoid her. L also...