The Katzke Dog Diary

In some ways, training Henry is really difficult. Even after six months of recovery, it’s so easy to trigger a panic attack that you can go straight from the most positive training session in the world to him cowering under the couch in less than a second if you’re not careful.

The things a dog experiences during puppyhood are, to an extent, indelible. It’s not so much that older dogs can’t learn new tricks, it’s that older dogs have to overcome their pasts to learn new things. In Henry’s case, his past is intentional and unintentional abuse.

One of the training exercises we do is designed to teach him patience and watching hands and face for signals. We move a treat slowly from our eyes to his mouth, and if he jumps for the treat we pull it away. We did this exercise in five minute mini-trainings for a few days just fine … and then yesterday, we did it right before dinner and after a walk and all of a sudden his lips start quivering and his head bows down into the “sad Henry” that he acted like when I first rescued him. Checking his heart rate, it was very elevated. Classic case of Henry Panic Attack. This dog’s on so much prozac that he shouldn’t be able to wake up in the morning, much less actually have a panic attack!

It turns out that visitors to the house he lived in used to play “keep away” (intentionally or not) with food, which Henry would try to grab from them … while Henry is quietly starving due to parasites and malnutrition. One of two things would happen — he would be smacked and put back in his crate (hence the fear response), or he would be given some food for laying on the ground and looking REALLY pitiful.

Yeah, that’s going to short-circuit the exercise we were trying to do. *sigh*

Henry had an extreme anxiety attack last night, the likes of which I haven’t seen since I first got him.

Realizing that my juvenile neighbors were going to be playing with explosives regardless of the city laws that forbid fireworks within city limits, I decided to bring him with me to the bonfire. I also brought over 100 flying fireworks with me. I figured that if I was there, he wouldn’t freak out too badly. Boy, was I wrong!

Things started out OK. He didn’t like the cold, but welcomed the fire and was happy to stay by my side. He was on edge and was doing his guard dog thing when anyone joined us around the fire, but there was a young boy to play and run with and there were lots of happy people talking and chattering. I put the boy (Fred, Jr.) in charge of him (don’t let him eat anything!) and they were playing and running together.

After I shot off about 10 bottle rockets of varying sizes and was about to start playing with mortars, Fred, Jr. ran up to me and said Henry wasn’t doing OK. I took his pulse and it was around 3 beats per second, which works out to … gulp… roughly 180 beats per minute. That’s not good. He was standing with the tip of his tail tickling his ribcage, his back arched, and was just shaking. Not good. I know better than to take him inside and try to leave him alone… I gave him about three minutes to calm down, and then checked his pulse again. Still way too high. We got in the car and left. He stayed in the back seat down on the floor the entire ride home. When we got home, he immediately passed out when he was in one of his “safe places” at my feet.

Since he’s already on 50mg+ of prozac daily (Reconcile) for a 55 lbs dog, the vet said not to give him anything else like Benadryl or Acepromazine. He’s been OK with thunderstorms so far, but we haven’t really had a good one in six months… I think I might ask her about something to use in that kind of situation in case I CAN’T remove him from the environment.

I made a post on my tech/personal blog about my techie and personal goals for 2009, but it’s time I sit down and take a hard look at what I want to do with the dogs.

Henry unexpectedly came into my life in July, and has been the bane of my pocketbook and social life ever since. On the other hand, he’s been such a rewarding personal experience that I’m loath to quit while I’m ahead — and I refuse to dump my problems on someone else. Henry’s goals for 2009 are:

1. Start trailing off of the prozac. At my vet’s directions, he’s on a 1.5x dose of Reconcile right now. I can get generic prozac in 20mg capsules for much cheaper than the Reconcile, but since he’s on about 52mg a day right now and attempts to back that off have not met with great success, I need to wait a little bit on it.
2. Build his confidence with obedience training. This is in progress and going well, thanks to Jennie. We’re working on retrieval right now.
3. Build his confidence by exposing him to new social situations. This is meeting with mixed, but mostly positive results. He will happily enter elevators now, and he can walk through a lobby full of students on campus without flinching. I’d like to expand the number and level of social interactions that he’s comfortable with.
4. Decide if I’m going to keep him or adopt him out. A lot of this decision depends on how well Eowyn does, because if she’s still in pain after the FHO recovery, then I need to put her down for her sake and I’d prefer to still have Henry at that point.

Eowyn turned 2 this past year, and she also had both hips operated on. After her rehabilitation period this year, we’ll hopefully be able to start training out some of the dog and food aggression that she’s picked up along the way. Experimentation with painkillers has shown that her tendency towards aggression drops markedly when she’s not in pain. (Go figure.) My goals for her this year are:

1. Finish her recovery from the FHO following the crate rest and physical therapy guidelines.
2. Get a solid and immediate ‘down’ command trained in that I can use to redirect any time she gets into an aggressive pattern.
3. Start redirecting her aggression using the ‘down’ command.

Here’s to a happy new year for you and yours!

We were settling in for an afternoon in front of the computer when I heard a familiar “schlurp, schlurp, gnaw gnaw gnaw gnaw” from the corner that Henry was laying in. Sure enough, he was gnawing on one of his paws. And sure enough, when I sat down next to him and looked at it, he had a hot spot on one of his toes.

Here's what a foot that hurts looks like.

Zoomed in, see how pink it is

For comparison's sakes, here's what a healthy foot looks like.

Before I get into this post, let me say this in really really really big letters: I’m not a veterinarian, I have no veterinary training and I take my dogs to a vet if I’m at all concerned or if they’re bleeding. Don’t take this advice as gospel, and if you have ANY worries, call or see your vet as soon as possible.

That being said, Henry and Eo get hot spots between their toes (either on the bottom of their foot between the pads or on top of their foot between the claws) all the time. I think it has something to do with the sandy soil or some of the sharper natural grasses that grow in the backyard where we didn’t sod. They usually won’t leave it alone and gnaw and lick at it constantly, which of course makes it worse and won’t allow it to heal. (more…)

After Jennie invited me to a party at the training facility she uses in Houston, I finally have something to call Henry’s attitude and behavior: Learned Helplessness.

About a month ago, I felt like I hit a brick wall with his training. He’s no longer wetting the crate on an hourly basis. He’s no longer trying to escape the crate or the house. Yes, he’s anxious as hell if I’m not present in the house. Yes, he’s on a behavior modification plan that includes plenty of social interaction and positive reinforcement of confident, sedate behavior and appropriate greetings.

So. Learned Helplessness (aka clinical depression) is usually overcome in humans with drugs and cognitive therapy. When no longer receiving negative stimuli, dogs usually recover quickly. However, Henry continues to claw at the inside of (although doesn’t make a huge effort to escape) his crate, continues to wet his crate (although now he pees out the door instead of wetting every surface inside the crate), and otherwise continues to demonstrate helpless, hopeless behavior … even though the consequences that taught him that he was helpless (laying in his own waste with an empty stomach and whipworms gnawing his insides) have been removed. Frankly, he *is* helpless — he can’t get out, and I’m not present. I know he can hold his bladder because he does sometimes. His entire attitude of the crate is negative even though it’s as positive (warm, dry, soft bed, lots of white noise and a radio, treats, stuffed kongs, fed in crate, etc.) an experience as can be made.

So now the question is… keep going, or try something different? There’ll be a slight reset soon as I go visit my parents over the holiday and leave Henry in a high-attention boarding kennel and Eowyn gets her second FHO…

I’m a big fan of recycling, and I’m a cheap son of a gun. Reusing is a big part of recycling… the trick is throwing out what you need to throw out but keeping the stuff that might be useful! I’ve got a whole rubbermaid container full of lightly torn up or “well-loved” towels, bed sheets and bedspreads, and other miscellany just waiting to be used.

Since it’s suddenly WINTER here in Texas, the kids needed some better bedding. Henry spends a lot of time in his crate (Eo sleeps with me because her hips need a softer bed; Henry sleeps in the crate both as part of his separation anxiety training and because he stinks like a male hound dog and I can’t breathe after sleeping a night next to him!) so he came first. I turned two old full-sized terry cloth towels into a nice two-sided, quilted crate pad that should make sleeping in the otherwise cold, hard crate a rather pleasant experience. In fact, he’s snoring away in there right now.

It took me a grand total of three hours to make, and cost maybe $1 in thread and $.50 in batting. And it makes me feel good to have re-used something instead of spending a lot of money at the pet store!

Apologies for no posts over the holiday; Managing four dogs instead of two can be just a touch tiring.

Basil and Henry:

(Basil is a Lowchen, and it’s traditional to shave their hindquarters and legs for show/conformation purposes.)

That’s Mouse, a ~150 lbs Greater Swiss Mountain Dog.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

For those keeping track at home, Henry had one of the world’s worst case of separation anxiety — we’re counting two destroyed crates and damage to a third, damage to the house when he escaped from the crate or was left out, and physical damage done to himself during escape attempts.

At my veterinarian’s recommendation, we had him on about 48mg daily of Reconcile, which is Fluoxetine Hcl (same as Proazac) and a behavior modification program that involved desensitization and making his kennel his happy go-to place. This is completely standard and is easy to enforce. From there, it just has taken time for him to become more comfortable in his new life.

We reached another giant milestone today. I was gone from 8:30am until 1 and then until 6:30 at night — and not only did he not pace and drool, but his tendency to wet his kennel (stress urination) didn’t happen! Except for his usual “run around in circles” when I got home, he didn’t display ANY signs of undue stress or anxiety and wasn’t even breathing hard when I came into the room to let the kids out of their crates!

Henry went through four distinct phases over the past few months.

The first phase was completely insane hyperactive panic attacks whenever I left the house — especially if I took Eowyn with me. He would try anything and everything to escape and follow us, up to and including pulling the welds of a metal crate apart, chewing through plastic, bending wires, and figuring out how to manipulate catches. Once he was loose in the house, he’d try to chew through the windows, doors, and window and door frames. We started the reconcile after the first two crates got chewed through. It helped a lot, but definitely isn’t 100% of the solution.

The second phase was drooling and pacing the entire time I was absent. Again, this is indicative of an incredible amount of stress. I worked on this when we were home by randomly having one or both of them go into their kennels, rewarding them (esp. with a treat inside the kennel already so that they don’t associate it with me — peanut butter kongs for the win!) and letting them be for a while.

The third phase that was a real pill was the heavy drinking phase. No, not beer. Henry would re-enter the panic state if his water bowl got emptied. Considering that I didn’t want to OVER-water either of them and have them go to the bathroom in their crates, I had limited both of their water during the day to a quart. Henry would immediately drink this and then panic when it was empty. (At this point, I was monitoring them with a webcam.) I “solved” this by buying a gallon(!) bucket and double-ended D-clip and hanging the entire gallon of water in his crate.

This, of course, brought about the fourth phase — wetting the kennel. I didn’t realize it for a few days because of the history of pacing/drooling, and he’s a typical sloppy hound drinker, but Henry was consistently peeing in his kennel in the afternoons every day even though I was arriving home at a regular time each day. He’s SO well potty trained that I was 99% it was connected to the anxiety. (He’s had one accident in the house with bloody diarrhea, and when he couldn’t wake me up, he pooped in the far front corner of the house as far from the ‘den’/bedroom as possible and on easily cleanable laminate flooring. I removed the soft items from his kennel (towels/pad, soft toys) and left only easily sanitize-able kongs and nylabones plus a smaller water dish and his food bowl in the crate during the day, and after two weeks of consistently wetting, I *think* he finally didn’t today! It must’ve been the long walk we took at lunch and a couple opportunities to go to the bathroom along the way.

I think the big hurdle was first providing enough water so that he could get past the “I’m going to be dehydrated” thing, and then solving his food issues at the same time. With his history of intestinal problems, I switched him from the Innova Adult (which is otherwise an excellent food that I highly recommend) to Wellness Simple, which has a few different varieties that have only five or six ingredients and very little overlap between the ingredients… that way if one variety doesn’t work, you can always try others. He immediately stopped scratching at his sides with his hind leg and his stool firmed up to solid for the first time.

If you’re facing the same type of situation I did, whether with your dog or with a rescue or shelter dog, there’s lots of hope and light at the end of the tunnel. You and your dog will be fine. Just continue treating the dog with dignity, respect (without coddling), and address any concrete health issues or definitive psychological issues that come up as quickly and completely as possible. Separation anxiety *can* be managed! And what a difference it makes in a dog’s life to not be so worried all the time!

Eo and Henry are going to love this weekend — Mouse and Basil (Respectively: 150 lbs Swiss Mountain Dog, 2x Eo’s size, and 15 lbs floor mop Laochen who rules the house) are coming to stay with us over Thanksgiving.

I feel like a complete dork for making this post, but — Henry, for the first time in at least three months and probably a year, has had consistently solid stool for three days running. What did it? I switched him from Innova Adult to Wellness Simple Venison and Rice … I think he thought it was bland at first, but the difference was immediate and obvious.

Also, he stayed in his crate quietly for an entire 8 hour workday today. Talk about a day of accomplishments for him… and one hell of a lot of relief for me.

I took Henry with me to a lot of social events over the past few days. On the list that I’m now sure that Henry is good with:

• Infants (he belly crawled up to her and licked her toes and made her laugh)
• Rambunctious pre-teens (mutts are durable!)
• Cats (Cat wasn’t so sure about him, though.)
• Bunnies (Took one sniff, the bunnies ears moved, and he backed off with a “WTF?!” expression!)
• Fish (He didn’t try to jump in the pond and eat them like Eo would’ve.)

We still need to work on generalizing “don’t jump on people” and “no begging for food”, but those are easy in comparison to the problems we dodged above.