Busy week, kidney stones and a neurotic dog

Wow, what an interesting week and it’s now Saturday evening. I have neglected this blog the last few days.

Let’s see–Tuesday nothing interesting. We worked on some backyard agility for our online class.

Wednesday – I don’t remember but nothing stands out

Thursday-Gypsy rocked agility class without a Thundershirt. She was really focused, didn’t take off and understood my handling.

Friday — wow what a day. I had been feeling some pain in my back the last few days and decided to call the doctor yesterday (the urologist). About a year and a half ago I had a kidney stone. It passed in a week. The pain I feel now is similar to that pain. Well, the radiologist saw a stone on the x-ray but not on the CT scan. So I don’t even know if I have a stone or not or if this pain is something else. That is what bothers me the most. So yesterday I was at the doctors all afternoon. In the evening the pain was pretty mild and we went to Four Paw to practice our agility handling homework. It was an eye opener, doing a sequence without arms and really mapping out cues.  It was like what Dr. Yin says when the dog feels a sigh or breath of relief because you’re finally speaking her language. That’s the way I feel like the handling session went. Gypsy made more eye contact with me than she has ever done before!  We were both tired after that.

Today: Today she did great in her Growly Dog 2 class. There was only 1 other dog besides Gypsy and he’s pretty low-key. She didn’t cross threshold at all.  Afterwards we went to the beach and chilled in the sand and sun because it was a beautiful day today.  When we got home, the neighbors were kind of noisy and she went a little balistic. CC wasn’t doing any good. It was like I described last week or the week before where she was pacing, whining, being hypervigilant, and barking.  When we got home from the beach I gave her some rescue remedy but her reactivity got worse. So she got about 1mg of melatonin. It took about an hour to help relax her (on top of closing blinds and putting her on leash), but now I think she’s relaxed. I can’t really work the CC now because it’s dark and the noises are gone.

Earlier in the week I talked to the vet about meds and we decided to try melatonin for a few weeks. I think it’s helping. We have an agility trial tomorrow and I’ll be giving her melatonin there to see if it helps take the edge off.  I hope so.

Today I am thankful for good doctors, loving dogs, and Aleve. Ouch.

Gypsy at the beach today. It was a beautiful day.

 

Training at the vet — and wow it’s week 8!

We didn’t do much work today at home. After work I took Apollo to the vet for his eyes. I brought Gypsy along because we were meeting a friend for a walk at the park afterwards. Gypsy was a little OCD with a cat in a crate in the waiting area. She stared at it unless I treated. There was only one other dog in the waiting area and I picked her up and she was fine.

In the exam room, she looked perfectly happy! She wasn’t worried at all. She stayed on the floor while the doctor looked at Apollo.  Gypsy was very good and it’s amazing how at home she has a meltdown but at the vet she’s ok. I guess that’s good because I want the vet to be a positive place.

I told our vet about what Dr. Yin said about Gypsy not being able to handle her anxiety and told her I was about to the point of researching meds. She did seem to want to try Rescue Remedy and Melatonin first, which I do agree with since it’s much less harmful. I told her I would try melatonin for a few weeks and if it didn’t help, I would make an appointment and we can talk about meds.  I hope it works. I really don’t want to use meds. But as she said, some dogs really do need extra help. I told her I can’t click and treat all day long and that’s pretty much what I have to do. I never want meds to be permanent if that’s the way we go. So I’ll try some melatonin in the evenings when I get home from work and then 2x a day on weekends, every 8-10 hours and we’ll try for 2-3 weeks.

Today I am thankful we had a nice walk in the park after the vet and there were no reactions.