lakersfan4life24
New member
My rescue, Bowie, is ~14-15 months old. According to the DNA test I got he’s about 1/3 ACD, and he’s the light of my life, but he’s also been pushing me to my limits recently. We’ve been working closely with a trainer since he was about 5 months old and have made SO much progress, but I feel like we’ve taken 1,000 steps back in the last month or so. To give some context- before being rescued he was a street dog (found abandoned on the streets in Texas with his brother and what was assumed to be his beagle mom, although according to the DNA test she was likely just a surrogate mom because he has zero beagle in him), so I know a lot of his fun little unique Bowie-isms stem from his past. He’s always been high energy and goes from 0-100 in about 2 seconds flat, and is fairly reactive overall, but this has been pretty manageable and recently we’ve seemed to enter some sort of fear stage/developmental period that’s been really difficult for me to deal with. While he’s always been a bit chompy, he’s suddenly started to show some mildly aggressive behaviors towards people he never has before. We had a one-on-one with our trainer about 2-3 weeks ago to work on his recent fear of nail trimming and he mouthed/nipped her twice, which was extremely unusual and surprising since he LOVES our trainer. He also did the same with my grandma the other day and did some snarling/nipping with her, which he’s never done before- although we were watching a football game with the family at the time and there were a lot of new faces and a lot of yelling from us all, so I know this likely contributed. He’s also been much more reactive than usual and has been generalizing- he’s now reacting to anything that rattles like scooters/trucks instead of just skateboards. I guess I just feel at a loss lately and like I’ve failed him and our training, because we’re suddenly not only regressing but dealing with problems we’ve never dealt with before. I know that some of this is related to his age and the fact that he’s an adolescent, but it’s just been really hard to deal with and it’s brought me to tears several times. Do we need to start an SSRI? Will this get better with time? Just hoping for some advice or insight from other ACD lovers!
Edit: I guess I should mention that we’re on clonidine twice a day
Edit: I guess I should mention that we’re on clonidine twice a day