How We Live With Edie's Anxiety
How We Live With Edie's Anxiety
I’ve written about Edie’s separation anxiety before, at that point we’d made really good progress but little did I know we’d spend most of 2020 cooped up inside. I think like most dog owners, we’re having to go back to basics with leaving Edie happily alone but it’s not just separation Edie is struggling with. Since the day that we re-homed her, she's always been a little bit nervous and skittish, living up to those stereotypical whippet traits and it's been hard. Having a dog with quite a lot of anxieties around day-to-day activities has been a big learning curve for us and I feel like I’ve learnt a lot in the past year or so.
what is making Edie so anxious?
As I’m not a behaviourist I really can’t give a specific reason to this but to us, being separated from her humans is seemingly her biggest worry which is a pretty standard anxiety amongst most dogs. She loves being amongst humans, and is her happiest when she’s with all the humans she loves the most. On walks and around other dogs Edie is very scared and nervous and there are a few reasons for this. A few weeks after we rehomed her on one of her first walks with us we met some rather unfriendly dogs and in pure fear she ran off and ended up in the road. Thankfully an extremely kind man driving saw her and rang the number on her ID tag. That day haunts me, we could have lost her forever and we were so lucky someone was good-natured enough to make sure she was returned to her owners but it could have ended much differently. There have been a couple more incidents where she has suffered bites from other dogs too so it’s fair to say her confidence with other dogs is pretty low and in particular fluffy dogs are a big source of worry for her. With other hounds Edie, whilst still a bit nervous she’s generally a lot more comfortable with dogs that look like her and that’s where we’ve tried to work on her confidence the most.
recognising it
It was easy to notice Edie’s separation anxiety from us, unfortunately, it’s a lot of crying and pacing around, and even though she does eventually settle it was something that we made a huge priority to conquer last year. Of course, lockdown put our progress back quite significantly but we’ve continued to work on it as much as we’re able to so she’s a little more comfortable with being left. The other biggest area we notice her anxiety is on walks, now we understand her a little more it’s been quite easy to spot the signs and for a while, I thought she was pulling on her lead through excitement but in social situations, she isn’t. She also had a large tendency to let out a few stressed barks but that isn’t quite so much of an issue anymore now but she is still extremely skittish around other dogs. There are a few social situations where she’s quite happy and we can generally keep her off lead so she can navigate the situation on her terms and that’s how we’re trying to build up her confidence with other dogs. We try and avoid on lead greeting with new dogs as much as possible as it causes distress to both girls.
how we’re working on it now
Last year I wrote an entire post about how we’ve gone about Edie’s separation anxiety (read it here) and we’re still putting those same practices into place now. We’re not right back to square one but we’re still doing the same things to build the time back up and she’s progressing reasonably well. However, one thing we’re doing differently is using Dorwest Valarian & Scullcap tablets (PR Sample) and we’ve found that Edie taking one or two of these tablets every single has helped to keep her general anxiety at a manageable level. It hasn’t disappeared and I don’t suspect it ever will but getting things down so they’re manageable for us all has been a big step as Josie picks up on how she’s feeling too which can make walks quite stressful. We’re now on our second tub of the Valarian & Scullcap and they’ve been such a great help, and I feel comfortable giving her them daily because they don’t make her drowsy or sluggish. Not only has this helped Edie be a little calmer when we’re leaving her but it’s helped her on walks too. She’s quite bad at pulling on her lead at the beginning of a walk or if she’s excited about where we are this will also more than likely make her pull which isn’t something we want her to be doing.
little steps we’ve taken
Not making a big deal when leaving her or prolonging our departure.
Keeping her routine consistent.
Not making a big deal around other dogs and trying to treat every situation as normal.
Treating and praising her after all positive interactions with other dogs.
