Adjusting to life with Rocky dog has been quite an adventure so far – both for the family and for Rocky. The dog which came home from the SPCA with us was calm and well-behaved. Once he figured out that we had to go to school and work 5 days a week, he was a little miffed. And he expressed his displeasure by destroying his crate – actually 3 crates – and wreaking havoc around the house.
The vet calls it extreme separation anxiety. And on Friday, Rocky was prescribed seizure medicine – Phenabarbitol – to help ‘calm’ him. The vet called in the prescription to our local pharmacy, and the pharmacist had a great laugh as she entered Rocky’s information into our family record of medicines. We are probably one of their best customers, if not the best given all the prescriptions my kids and I take. And now we have one more family member on their roles. If only my insurance prescription coverage extended to Rocky….
Rocky’s meds seem to be helping a bit. We took a couple of short trips over the weekend to see how he would handle the situation. He didn’t destroy another crate, although he did bark a lot when we left. But I was encouraged. Yesterday morning and this morning, I could almost read it in his eyes that he knew we were going for a longer time. Yesterday he barked a while, but then settled down, and he didn’t get out of his crate. This morning he barked a little longer, and I won’t know until this afternoon how he does with the whole day.
He’s such a good dog other than the separation anxiety and his strange obsession with Tickle Me Elmo, and I really hope we can work through this. If anyone has other ideas, I would love to hear them!
1 comment:
Oh, that is tough. I hope the medication helps. Our dog Darwin could never stand crate training. He had severe anxiety with it. Luckily, he is very good out of his crate.
Hugs.
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