Eli is an Anxious Dog

I'm not a veterinary behaviorist or a professional dog trainer, I am just an owner with an anxious dog who has utilized both veterinary behaviorists and professional dog trainers to help me and my boyfriend understand our anxious dog and make his and our lives better. 


What are some of the signs that your dog is anxious? 


We've all seen our dogs be anxious--during a thunderstorm, when they have a bad interaction with another dog, when they're upset that we left them alone, or maybe when we get upset with them! Some signs that a dog is anxious that most experienced dog owners know include tucking their tail between their legs or hunkering down their body posture. However, some signs are less obvious, like licking their lips, yawning, shaking their skin like they would after going swimming but when they're not wet, and some signs might be clear, but we don't always understand what they mean, like pacing and being unable to settle down even though you are settled down. Dogs that are easily startled may also have a high baseline of anxiety. Sometimes dogs will constantly lick their paws or if they have a minor scratch, they'll lick it incessantly because of anxiety. Prior to medication and behavioral intervention, Eli exhibited each and every one of these signs of anxiety. 


How do you help an anxious dog?


We ended up at a veterinary behaviorist because our dogs got in a fight. This was a culmination of a deterioration in their interactions together. We weren't there for Eli's anxiety, but perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, our dog's fight was largely a result of Eli's anxiety. Eli has generalized anxiety for real, and given his background of being rescued as a cruelty case and now understanding his intelligence and sensitivity--DUH! The behaviorist put Eli on anti-anxiety medication and helped us identify good puzzle toys for him. That helped immensely for a long time. Then we got comfortable and decided to see if we could take him off the meds since the dogs were doing well together. Basically, we were stupid. He became increasingly fear aggressive to Bee and incredibly possessive of us. Even after putting him back on the meds, a lot of damage was done between their relationship and we had no idea how to handle it.


In an attempt to help him and us, we started Eli in classes at Y2K9s Dog Sports Club. We had taken both the dogs separately through Basic and Advanced Canine Manners there when we first got them, but stopped after that, like many busy owners do. Eli was a superstar in classes. Everyone loved him and he was amazing with the other dogs. For awhile his behavior in the home improved a lot as well, probably as a result of more regular mental exercise. But then he declined again. We're not sure why. It was winter and perhaps he wasn't getting as much physical exercise, perhaps we weren't working on his training as often. We went through a terrible period when we seriously considered re-homing him. Our stress levels were incredibly high. We obviously wanted re-homing him to be a last resort, so we hired one of the instructors at Y2K9s to do some in-home training with us. We had handled Eli's issues outside the home, but now we needed serious help in the home. 


The trainer we hired, Marisa Scully, has her own private dog training business, Philly Dog Training, that mostly deals with behavioral issues. She also has 3 rescued pit bulls of her own. She helped us really truly understand Eli and what his needs were particularly inside our home. Some pit bulls, i.e. Eli, are the most sensitive dogs you can find. Something bad happens to them once, and they are fearful of it forever. To work with these dogs and use their sensitivity for good, you have to be incredibly cognizant of your tone of voice, your body language, and to always use positive reinforcement. We had Marisa visit 3 times over 3 months, and with lots of hard work during that time and after with just us, we re-conditioned Eli to have a positive association with Bee. 


Are things perfect? No. We use a lot of management, but the dogs cooperate incredibly well together now. One of the beautiful things we learned about positive reinforcement is that you can actually change the dog's emotional response to the stimulus that used to make them so anxious. The fact that Eli and Bee are still living together with us is a great testament to this.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to post any questions!