@mauricio512 Thank you so much for posting this. My dog is truly perfect in every way, as far as everyone else assumes and as far as I’m concerned — usually. He follows every command, has perfect recall, is gentle and smart and sweet. He doesn’t jump on people. He doesn’t get up in anyone’s face. He doesn’t even lick without consent! He won’t jump up and steal food off the counter (but anything floor level is fair game). He’s amazing with cats, kids and people in general. He is extremely easy to train and loves learning new tricks. He loves cuddling and sitting on the porch, people watching. His mild temperament and love for occasional adventure makes him my perfect companion. He’s lazy, but loves to go on our twice daily neighborhood walks, loves to play catch with his favorite duck, and loves to figure out puzzles.
He’s also dealt with absolutely insane separation anxiety (from me). It was
so bad for the first six months he was here. He’s my shadow. I can not walk from one side of the kitchen to the other without him immediately on my heels. Until about seven months ago, if I left the house, he sat dutifully at the window waiting for me — even if I was gone overnight — getting excited each time he thought a sound or car might be me and crying when it wasn’t. He’s also dog reactive, but only certain dogs, and it isn’t dependent on size or breed or gender or shape or height or anything we can determine and figure out, so it’s unpredictable. We’ve had to work so hard to help him. His separation anxiety is so much better! I can actually close a door and spend time alone when need be and he’ll go chill in his spot on the couch. He relaxes when I leave the house, too. His dog reactivity is also better, but we still have a lot of work to do. If he’s on leash and with me, he’s fine. We can go in public, we can go on walks, we can be in our yard. But, if he’s with someone else or if he’s in our yard and a dog approaches he barks so loudly it’s deafening. That bark used to come with every dog being walked past our house (even when he was inside) and now only comes when he’s outside, in our own yard on his lead (always supervised) and a dog walks near our yard, or when we’re walking and a dog he’s reactive to is walking towards and past us. It’s like he has FOMO.
Nobody would ever guess this when meeting and greeting him. I’m glad he’s so happy and personable. I just wish I could scream, sometimes, because it’s truly stressful and I want him to be happy and calm! Don’t even get me started on thunderstorms and artillery (we live right outside the back gate of a large military base and the booms go off for hours on end, almost daily). He thinks every person he meets exists to be his BFF but he also thinks the sound of thunder exists to squash him, personally. Ugh. From June 25th or so to July 7th or so, the nightly fireworks made this a miserable household. Like I said, we have a long way to go!