Weird new anxiety issues

[Carmeow]

Luma has always had her "quirks"...like being afraid of the kitchen or being extremely over-hyper when we have guests over. I definitely feel like she was pretty well behaved other than those things. She listens to commands pretty solidly. But we moved a few months ago into an apartment with an identical floor plan, except it's newly renovated. Since then she has been acting strange. At first I thought she was still just adjusting, but now I'm feeling guilty about moving her from the old unit.

She has no trouble walking on the hardwood, but I think it's a little more echo-y and she hates loud noises. We used to live upstairs, but now we live downstairs and the people above us have children and are very, very loud at all hours of the day. Lots of loud booming/banging noises from upstairs which freaks her out. I've already had to talk to them about being more quiet after hours since I get up for work at 4:30am M-F, but kids are kids and I understand that. Luma is just not used to these noises.

She has even had an accident or two (which NEVER happens) due to her being scared. There were no children around the old apts. but the new one is right by the pool and courtyard/playground/picnic area. There are children outside screaming and playing from 4-8pm. During these times, Luma gets so anxious she starts shaking pretty hard and whining. Hiding under the couch, flopping onto her side, and has even hidden in the kitchen and peed in there because she has never gone in the kitchen before and once she realized where she was, she felt "stuck" in there.

She will just frantically try to climb up my chest and lays there shaking and panting like she's terrified. I feel so, so bad. When she gets in these moods (or whatever they are) she won't listen to anything I say to try to snap her out of it. I don't baby her because I don't want her to think something is wrong. I just use a friendly voice, like the one we use when we play. I try to distract her with toys, a game of fetch or tug of war, etc.

Today I left the house for maybe five minutes to run to my car and get my phone, and when I came back I heard loud noises in the bedroom. Luma had chewed/bitten huge hunks of wood out of the bedroom door. She wasn't shut in the room, the door was open, and she didn't go to her pad, she had peed on the floor. She was shaking very hard.

All of these behaviors are extremely unlike my Luma. I don't know what I can do to turn this around and make her feel confident again. I worry about her so much. Rosie, my other baby, is perfectly fine and if anything, seems happier than ever. What I have tried to change so far to make it better: way more individual "special" time. Taking them on errands, taking them to the dog park more, letting them play outside more. They're never shut in the bedroom. They always have free run of the house. They are alone maybe 3 hours a day at the most. That's always been the same. I would like to hear any suggestions yall may have. Am I overthinking this?

[yorkietalkjilly]

As far as her possible fear of the scary floors, temporarily add some rubber-backed rugs so that she can transverse the floor and grip it with her pads and not feel insecure as she learns to accept the kitchen. You can gradually take up every other pad as she adjusts more. Encourage her to walk on the floor and slowly adjust to it by encouraging her onto it with a big of delicious, freshly-warmed bite of chicken or squeak toy and keep her distracted with the food/toy so she doesn't think about the fact that she's walking onto the floor she mistrusts for now. Leave treats along the wood flooring for her to "find" and that will encourage her to go onto the floor. Have her chase you around the apartment and run into the kitchen so she'll follow without thinking - things like that should get her to realize it's not that bad in there and form different, more pleasant associations with the floor.

A good obedience training and life-enrichment games and puzzles should get her busy working and learning and keep her busy with these things as an antidote to her new fearful state. As she works and bonds with you in the training process, she will automatically gain confidence and lessens her anxieties and fears and grow more self-assured.

Teach her how to be self-confident by not fearing strange or new things put in odd places. Get out a few treats and put them in a pouch in front of her. Say "Time to work" and take her over and introduce your dog to 5 strange new items(a book, a flower pot, a stick from outside, a radio, a kitchen tool) from the house or yard lying on the floor and instantly treat her as she nose-touches them or sniffs them to build and encourage her self-confidence. If she's afraid, encourage her by making it fun to go up to one of them by baiting her with your voice or a treat - and she instantly gets the treat if she sniffs it closely, paws or nose-touches it. After she is used to those things, replace them for another session with other things a few hours later. She will learn that new things or scary things aren't that bad.

Take her outside to hear the kids while playing with her with a ball and treats for a minute or two and back inside. Gently increase her outside desensitization sessions as she tolerates.

Keep her moving as much as you can for the next month. Take her for frequent, very short but fast walks with lots of treats along the way if she begins to act worried or anxious to keep her going forward. If you make the walks short, she will soon learn that even if she is scared, it will be over soon and besides, she'll get treats and before long, she will accept the noisy outside better. Walk her up and down any stairs you have the same way. Lots of treats and gentle or wild praise - whichever she seems to like the most as she gets toward the end of the session. Lots of smiles and "atta girl"'s!!!

If she begins to withdraw from any of her desensitization work, lick her lips, yawn or shake, shorten the session and up the ante to freshly-boiled chicken just off the stove when she's hungry. Use her instinct for food to get her to do things she wouldn't do for that food she's so hungry for. It will get her involved in things she wouldn't ordinarily do if she's hungry and help her accept the thing going on in the background or near her that she ordinarily might fear but will begin to ignore when she's hungry.

These are just a few, quick ideas I could think of off the cuff but if you work her, keep her busy and use her instincts for her good, she will begin to gain more confidence and feel less fear.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Be sure some of the strange, new things you encourage her to approach and sniff, nose- or paw-touch are noise-making things after a while of using more mundane things to build her confidence early on, graduating to a toaster that is set, a timer set to one minute before it "dings" and a jack-in-the-box, things like that. If you start out easy and slowly build up to more scary things and make a fun game of her going to inspect it and she gets a treat and big time praise when she goes, a happy, thrilled mommie dancing around and patting her all over, she will begin to trust herself and see nothing bad happens to her when strange things happen or go off or ring or ding. I tell Tibbe to "check it out!" when he sees something odd and he knows that game-playing tone of voice I use and he's immediately up for most of the things but on some, I have to encourage him and before too many days, he's all in.

Same with the loud music, use that as a reason for a party and celebration. Get a child's drum and gently touch it with your fingers and treat her. Keep that exercise up for a couple of days. Change to the drum stick and increase the noise over a few days, treating her with each couple of hits. Bring in magazines to flip pages and newspaer to crinkle - all for smiles and treats and praises from you when you make the noise and she stays close by and isn't acting fearful by shrinking away, lip-licking, yawning or shaking. Open and shake out trash bags - go through a whole box of the small, cheaper ones for treats and praises as she stays put, starting with just her approaching it and nose-touching it at first. Then, crinkle it up and if she stays put, a treat/smile/praise. Then, after a few days, gently open one and if she stays put, segue into shaking them open. Keep on adding to her noise repertoire and allowing her to face little bitty noise at first and gradually working up until she tolerates even the loud things. This is how you inure a dog to odd, scary things/situations and build its confidence and free it from fears over time.

[yorkietalkjilly]

P. S. If you have to at first, put treats right on or near the strange new items you place on the floor to encourage her to approach them - whatever it takes to get that hungry, interested girl to go up to the new object and touch it.

[dawn27]

Gosh Carmen i am so very sorry that Luma is going through this. Luma must be out of her mind with fear and I feel so very bad that she is experiencing this. If she is like this when you are there can you imagine how she is when you are not. It seems to me that it would be pretty scary for her to be panicking and shaking the way you describe with no one to comfort her. One think that I would suggest is that maybe if you put her in a cage during those three hours you are gone maybe it would help keep her calm. I would imagine like most dogs that suffer from anxiety that she is passing, hiding and trying to find some way to sooth herself. Please don't blame yourself, you are a wonderful mommy, you had no idea that she would react this way. You are doing everything you can to help calm her down and get her to adjusted so just keep it up and hope for the best.

I have hear of dogs being put on medications to help with anxiety. Not that that would be you first choice but if it were my pup and nothing is helping I would really consider it.

[yorkietalkjilly]

After a few weeks of the above, one day walk her on the leash out by the pool when the kids are away from it and right back inside to a treat and much praise. Do that a few times and then as kids begin to gather, walk her out to the area and right back inside for a nice treat and praise. Gradually increase the trips to the pool area and back inside, occasionally waiting around for a minute or two and then back inside, as she tolerates. Encourage her with treats and walking her in tight circles after a treat if she begins to look nervous, anything to distract her while she's hearing and feeling the noise and energy of the pool and kids and then right on inside. She will slowly learn that the trips outside are very short, nothing awful happens and begin to associate the kids' noises with her food and your smiles and she will see that nothing really bad is happening out there. After a while, her doggie instincts should begin to kick in and she should start to want see what is going on and watch from afar. No doubt she's anxious around kids and their kinetic, reckless actions and noises, so I would remove her if they start to approach, telling them over your should that she's in training for noise fear and has to go in right now but hopefully, once she's trained, they can approach her - just not right now. If necessary, you can take her out where she can hear the noises but not in the line of sight of the kids if they won't stay away and she's fearful of them still.

After a few months of this training and desensitization, you should have a much less anxious and fearful, more confident, well-trained dog in control of her impulses and many of her anxieties - if, if, if you keep the training short and frequent, fun, make a game of it and stay patient and loving during the sessions.

[Carmeow]

I should have added that she is fine outside, its only inside she ever acts like this. I think it is because she doesnt know where the noises are coming from. If I pull the blinds up, for example, she can see them out the window from her perch on the arm of the chair. I try to keep them open most of the day but it does become a privacy issue.

Jeanie, you always give the most thoughtful and thorough training advice, thank you so much and you as well, Dawn. I'm going to try to work her through this. She's just so silly, getting worked up like this. I wish I could talk to her and reassure her. The crate thing is something I thought about, but wasn't sure if it'd help or hurt. I did consider switching them from potty pads to going outside but I don't know if the poor things could even potty in peace without being rushed by a huge crowd of kids screaming at them. Man, summer break will suck...all the kids will be out of school. We will have to get out of the house even more.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by Carmeow

I should have added that she is fine outside, its only inside she ever acts like this. I think it is because she doesnt know where the noises are coming from. If I pull the blinds up, for example, she can see them out the window from her perch on the arm of the chair. I try to keep them open most of the day but it does become a privacy issue.

Jeanie, you always give the most thoughtful and thorough training advice, thank you so much and you as well, Dawn. I'm going to try to work her through this. She's just so silly, getting worked up like this. I wish I could talk to her and reassure her. The crate thing is something I thought about, but wasn't sure if it'd help or hurt. I did consider switching them from potty pads to going outside but I don't know if the poor things could even potty in peace without being rushed by a huge crowd of kids screaming at them. Man, summer break will suck...all the kids will be out of school. We will have to get out of the house even more.

You two can do it if you work with her now before she gets any worse. Build up her confidence in small ways and train, train, train for 3 - 5 minutes no less than x2 daily and more often when you can and you will see a huge response. Enrich her life in every way you can with puzzles and games you play with her and keep her exercising and on the go, too busy to worry a lot for the next month. You might try a Thundershirt as that helped Tibbe when he was untreated for his MVD and he had panic attacks.

I'd try confining her to her crate and you might even cover 3 sides of it with a blanket so she feels more cosseted by the little "den" but she likely won't need that if you rehab her from her fear over the next months.

I'd also probably get blood work, fecal, Ua and a vet exam just to be sure nothing internal is going on with her and making her fearful. Tibbe was panicky the whole time he was beginning to be symptomatic from his MVD at about age 3 and I didn't realize what was causing it again as he'd conquered his old fears once before. Now that he's been diagnosed and is on his treatment diet, no more panic except occasionally a loud or odd noise will make him a bit anxious but not panicked or shaking, running in fear from the room or to me. Sometimes we just think we know what is causing a dog's panic so a vet check might very well be in order, just to be certain it's not related to her health.

[Verbena]

Jeanie has given you sound advice. If you want to keep the blinds up you can get a window cling that you can see out but no one can see in. That might help for the window Luma looks out of the most. I hope everything works out for you.

[dawn27]

Has she ever been around children before ?

[Cherie6446]

Poor little Luma being so scared. I hope using the ideas that Jeanie gave you will help. Also, something to think about. When we replaced our carpet with hardwood floors Gina jumped off the bed and her back leg must have splayed because she severed her cruciate ligament. This required surgery and rehab. Now we have carpets below the bed and next to the sofa so Zoey will not injure herself. Wood floors can be very slippery to them.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by Cherie6446

Poor little Luma being so scared. I hope using the ideas that Jeanie gave you will help. Also, something to think about. When we replaced our carpet with hardwood floors Gina jumped off the bed and her back leg must have splayed because she severed her cruciate ligament. This required surgery and rehab. Now we have carpets below the bed and next to the sofa so Zoey will not injure herself. Wood floors can be very slippery to them.

Poor Gina! Ouch! I'm so glad you had her bad injury repaired and set out to prevent further injury as much as you can. Slippery floors can make a dog feel insecure and not in control of their footing and together with other changes in her living environment, can really get them off kilter when sudden changes seem to rain down on them and everything seems different. That's why I recommended the rubber-backed rugs for a while even though she's not apparently technically frightened of walking on the floors but just to help her deal with anything that might add to her insecurities and help keep the hollow sound down a bit.