Medicating Molly

Thanks, all. The support means the world to me, given how conflicted I *STILL* am about this on some levels. I'm not even sure why I'm so conflicted - absorbing some negative/mocking attitudes floating around out there, I guess.

Kaya, Molly's reactivity as far as 'symptoms' go is typical reactivity stuff - growling, barking, lunging - or flat out FEAR where she'll hug the ground and shake. The real thing with her is that she's not only not improved, overall she's gotten worse. She was in classes from 7 months old and for quite a while able to be in group classes and doing off leash exercises, but toward the end she actually blew me off and rushed another dog. She's also had what will 'set her off' expand, a lot. She's gone from mostly reacting to other dogs and the occasional person to reacting more to people, and inanimate objects like plastic bags and, recently, freaking CAKE. Reflections in windows and doors. Weird noises.

Some of that is cyclic - she got worse, so we had to pull her from classes, so she was exposed less, so she got worse, so - Etc.

The other big thing with her is total inconsistency and clear conflict in her reactions. She'll be barking, growling, and have her hackles up - but also play bow. She'll be fine with something one day and NOT okay with it another, or five minutes later (she's reacted to my HUSBAND that she lives with, if context is even a little bit wrong), and she has no real resilience. She doesn't recover from stress/triggers quickly or well so they just stack up. So she'll cope with one thing that's a little bit hard, maybe two, and then the third thing that's normally okay will make her blow up and she'll stay wary/afraid of that thing for the next week.

She's a good, sweet, dog but she has ISSUES. Big ones.

That said, don't buy trouble. Teenage dogs often have some issues.

Well, for what its worth, I know you're probably conflicted but if it will help her, its the way you should go. I know most people don't jump on board with meds but if they can improve your dog's quality of life, then why not. And if you can implement some other things while she is taking them, then maybe someday she can get off them completely.

It seems that Molly has some similar issues as Kaya, but to a more extreme degree. Kaya will growl, bark, and shake but then (depending on the situation) can snap out of it in 20 minutes or so. If she is distracted, like when she is with her trainer, her fear will subside quicker. She reacts to the weirdest stuff too - pull strings on the ceiling fan, yogurt cups even though she loves yogurt, and occasionally my boyfriend who she lives with if he's wearing a weird hat or something. She is fearful of people and will bark and growl at strangers, but her tail with be up and curled or wagging. I don't know, just very inconsistent.

Best of luck to you guys and, please, keep us all posted on her progress!

Hector4 said:

I am interested in this thread as well. I know it's super helpful to implement more rules and structure on dogs that are anxious, fearful, reactive. Have you looked into introducing a place command? Do you work on BAT sort of thing? Like creating distance from other dogs when you see them out and about and then engaging her with something she enjoys OR even increasing her level of focus work at a good distance away from other dogs?

What are your goals in terms of reactivity?

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She does mat work and it was helpful before she started spiraling/getting worse. It was even useful in classes (it was most useful in classes). It's still useful at home. We've done BAT, LAT, and CAT - CAT not for very long, LAT made her noticeably much worse in that it would have her scanning the environment nonstop. BAT would be great, probably, if we had more dogs, but ultimately we don't have enough locations/dogs that we were able to get her to generalize. Ie: She'd be okay with some dogs in some locations but still over the top losing it if another dog appeared somewhere else.

To be honest, I no longer care about her reactivity with other dogs. My only goal there is to achieve any sort of threshold or fuse at all, because as it stands now if she sees another dog she is gone. It doesn't matter if they're on the horizon, if she's noticed the dog is there she is over threshold and incapable of thinking or learning. My biggest goals are a dog who isn't spooking and alarm barking because there's a magazine on the ground outside, or because light shone funny in a particular window, or my husband is wearing a coat or -

I just want the dog to be able to live life. I used to care about the dog thing and agility and reliability. I'm over that. I just want her to be able to be comfortable in life, even if that's only in a few locations. I'd like her to be able to RECOVER and to see something in the distance and know it's not going to eat her.

She's never come anywhere NEAR biting, I'm not worried about that, but I have some pretty major concerns about the fact that she gets scared to the point of doing this and, if pushed beyond, ends up on the ground shaking and just plain terrified.