My dog is making me depressed

[shoutnaija]

My GF and I adopted a rescue dog at 8 months and after ~11 months of work with multiple trainers, different meds, etc. he’s made basically no progress on anything. He can’t walk well on a leash. He can’t go to new places. We can’t have people over. But the worst of it is the severe separation anxiety. He can’t be alone in the house for even a few seconds. He will be extremely on edge and barky for days after we try to leave him despite meds and rigorous training to desensitize him below threshold.

Sometimes we make progress on the SA only for it to slip away completely with one bad experience. Then we have to start the training over again.

The dog can’t go to daycare and barely tolerates having other people watch him. He is only happy when one of is home and even then will be very anxious the next day.

I feel trapped. The thought of living like this for an another ~15 years has made me increasingly depressed. On the rare occasions when I can see my friends and socialize I increasingly don’t even want to. I feel judged constantly by the people saying “I’m sure he’ll get used to it” or “why haven’t you tried [basic thing like kongs we obviously tried months ago]” I’ve never felt so alone and isolated.

Owning a dog is all I’ve ever wanted and now I feel like a terrible person for wanting to get rid of him. And I know no one would take him. So he’d wind up in a shelter again, which would destroy him. I’ve given up hope he can get better no matter how much training we do so it just feels like a matter of time before we have to rehome him.

We’ve done all the things. We’ve tried everything and every version of R+ and balanced training you can imagine (the “balanced training made it worse). And we’ll keep trying. But my heart is in it less and less and I can only re-energize myself to keep doing this for so long.

He’s so sweet. I love him, I really do. That just makes this worse. I feel awful all the time, dumb for thinking this was a good idea, and guilty for wanting it to be over.

 

[sammypants]

@shoutnaija This is tough. How long have you been doing this for? How old is he? My dog has pretty severe reactivity to people and dogs but not seperation anxiety. Whenever you leave the home, and when you return, you bring a amazing toy or treat right? This helps them look forward to your return and can prevent separation anxiety. But maybe you already tried this.

However, for me, after the 2-3 year old mark, it gets easier with the dog. Any dog, reactivity, seperation anxiety or just a happy go lucky dog is verrrrry hard to manage until age 2-3. Something to keep in mind. So owning a dog takes a lot of adjustments for a couple of years as it’s a huge lifestyle and mindset change. And if this is your FIRST dog ever, it’s going to be even harder. If someone warned me that it would take 2-3 years to adjust to having a dog, I probably wouldn’t have got a dog . But that’s realistically, how long it takes.

It helps to have a support network too. How is your partner? Are you guys negative about the dog? Does your partner help? Do you have a good
Living situation? Space? Car? Having someone positive in your life makes challenges like this, or any life challenges, easier.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@shoutnaija Your health is priority. There's responsible ways to go about rehoming your dog. As for walking, have you tried a prong collar? Made a lot of progress walking our american bulldog. Might be worth it to YouTube?

 

[danayah]

@shoutnaija The breed of a dog can plan a huge factor in their energy and anxiety. There are “starter dogs” and ones that definitely need more experienced owners. Dogs need to be heavily researched before buying/adopting.

Both my fiancé and I have always had dogs growing up. Our dog right now is very well trained and will even clean up his toys when told to. We both work long hours (him 24 and me 12) and our dog hasn’t had any issues with it. That being said there are still some breeds we won’t even consider getting because of our lifestyle. We will only consider adoption/rescue if we know the breeds, entire story, etc.

Dogs are a lot of work and need a lot of time and dedication. They are hard and it can be more difficult when you don’t know what happened to them before. That being said you have to consider that you can’t help them if you aren’t 100% dedicated. You also can’t help them if you aren’t in a good place mentally.

I would recommend going to your local shelter and asking them if they have any recommendations for you. Sometimes they have ideas that vets or trainers don’t think of because it’s common for them to care for dogs from all walks of life.

Good luck!

 

[ann93]

@shoutnaija What’s the breed?

 

[shoutnaija]

@ann93 He’s a mixed breed street dog

 

[ann93]

@shoutnaija He’s a pitbull mix, isn’t he.

 

[shoutnaija]

@ann93 He’s a pit Shepard poodle mix. I don’t know that breed is the issue here

 

[ann93]

@shoutnaija Why can’t he be at daycare with other dogs?

 

[shoutnaija]

@ann93 It’s really overwhelming for him and he comes back super on edge for days. We took him to several daycares including one run by R+ trainers and they said he was super freaked out. He tends to have big regressions after boarding or daycare so we try to avoid it as much as we can. We’d like to send him to daycare or board him more but it just undoes the little training we’ve been able to do

 

[shoutnaija]

@ann93 It’s really overwhelming for him and he comes back super on edge for days. We took him to several daycares including one run by R+ trainers and they said he was super freaked out. He tends to have big regressions after boarding or daycare so we try to avoid it as much as we can. We’d like to send him to daycare or board him more but it just undoes the little training we’ve been able to do

 

[ann93]

@shoutnaija Try doggie CBD