Dog behavioral problem - can anyone help? - Page 5

libramunoz · #1 02-03-2009, 02:15 PM

I think folks are getting confused about what was going on with the OP and what help she wanted.
1. The dog has some issue with diseal trucks and acts a nut around them.
2. She wanted to know if there was something that she could do to help the dog from being nutty when she heard/saw the diseal truck.
3. The OP also wanted to know what to do to help the dog from basically getting bored on long car trips.
4. Hot Damn simply said that when she goes to work, she takes her doggy over to her parents to dog sit for the day.
People gave her good advice as to what to do about the diseal trucks sound and from there the boxing match seemed to get started. People began to assume this and that and it all started off as a simple discussion of what to do to help the dog with her actions.
People began to assume that she wasn't a good doggy parent and that she didn't care for the animal because of some of the suggestions that given. I think that this is a bad precedence to assume that Hot Damn didn't care for the animal and just basically wanted to drug her.
All she wanted was some suggestions to help the animal from hurting herself when she heard the sound of a Mac truck coming. Some folks just need to chillax before trying to hand someone the axe and calling the ASPCA.

sigmadiva · #2 02-03-2009, 02:17 PM

^^^^ Thanks for the re-cap. I guess I got caught up in the drugs vs. training argument.

libramunoz · #3 02-03-2009, 02:18 PM

It wasn't just you, I think it was a lot of people who got caught up in that.

agzg · #4 02-03-2009, 02:39 PM

We give our little guy doggie downers for long car trips (usually over 2 hours).

We thought about giving our little guy doggie downers this morning when he woke us up for a belly rub at 4am.

He's sleeping now - wonder why?

Anywho - this chamomile tea thing - someone recommended it to us to deal with some of his obsessive licking habits (since there's salt on the sidewalks, he's been licking his paws like CRAZY) - we have an appointment with the V-E-T next week but does it actually work to calm them? I'd love to maybe take care of it to some degree before his appointment, then ask the vet what they can do (I'd really hate to give him meds every day, if we can do the tea thing it would be ideal).

And where would I get it?

SWTXBelle · #5 02-03-2009, 02:49 PM

Here's a discussion of Rescue Remedy - http://www.oes.org/page1/Bach-Rescue-Remedy.html

and you can get it http://www.herbalremedies.com/resrem...FQZqswodiF-Bag

SydneyK · #6 02-03-2009, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alphagamzetagam

Anywho - this chamomile tea thing - ...does it actually work to calm them? ...
And where would I get it?

We used this on another dog who was terrified of storms. We ordered it from the Drs. Foster and Smith catalog. Unfortunately, we didn't find it to be effective at all. Actually, we discovered that she calms down if we put a towel in the bathtub, let her hop in and get comfy, then close the shower curtain. Not sure why that helps (and frankly, I have no idea how we discovered that this works), but she pretty much lives in the bathtub whenever it's stormy.

My parents' dog has a licking problem and they rub lemon juice on her feet. It has to be reapplied fairly often, but it seems to work. You might want to try that (assuming the GC vet staff approve) before forking over some cash for meds.

agzg · #7 02-03-2009, 03:41 PM

He only does it when there's salt on the sidewalks from the snow. I'd do the lemon thing, but he already has sores from it (which we have been putting cream on) and I think it would hurt him to rub lemon juice in sores.

We've tried stopping him when he starts licking, distracting him with bones, and we do put booties on his feet when we go out (because the salt hurts, too). We're worried that it's going to become some sort of obsession.

We have to go to the vet next week, anyway. Someone needs his rabies shot!

epchick · #8 02-03-2009, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alphagamzetagam

He only does it when there's salt on the sidewalks from the snow. I'd do the lemon thing, but he already has sores from it (which we have been putting cream on) and I think it would hurt him to rub lemon juice in sores.

We've tried stopping him when he starts licking, distracting him with bones, and we do put booties on his feet when we go out (because the salt hurts, too). We're worried that it's going to become some sort of obsession.

We have to go to the vet next week, anyway. Someone needs his rabies shot!

This is probably a dumb question, but have you tried washing his paws thoroughly?

My little chihuahua sort of has an obsession of biting his nails. It's really gotten to the point to where a lot of his nails are chipped, and splintering. He'll get tons of things stuck in his nails, pieces of carpet, fabric/thread from a blanket, and it hurts him. You can cut his nails, but he'll just go back to biting them. Its weird because some of his nails don't grow anymore (well he chews them enough that they dont need to be clips) but then the rest still do, and it is hard to clip them.

SydneyK · #9 02-03-2009, 03:47 PM

Ouch. Definitely a good idea to avoid rubbing lemon juice in sores. Poor thing... bless his little puppy heart.

SWTXBelle · #10 02-03-2009, 04:02 PM

Rescue Remedy is cheap - $7 in the link I posted. It worked for my dog and my daughter's cat - ymmv. I'd give it a shot.

Back to the op - could you crate the dog in the car? Maybe if he were in his own crate with his own blankie he would be calmer.

HotDamnImAPhiMu · #11 02-03-2009, 04:29 PM

I like the crating idea. Marley came with a LOT of undesirable behaviors, so I crate trained her while we were working on those. Now she LOVES the crate. It's in my bedroom and Marley sleeps in there half the time - I took off the crate door, so now it's basically just a little dog den for her. She's super comfortable and relaxed in it, so she'd probably calm down a lot if I crated her in the car.

If I'd just wanted to drug my dog, I would've hit her with the Dramamine already.

Alphagam, there's a product called Bitter Apple that you can spray on a dog's paws to keep them from licking. It runs about $4 a bottle. You've got a good point with the sores, though - I wouldn't want to put anything directly on them, either.

Last time I went on a trip, Marley got so anxious she created what the vet called a "hot spot" on her flank - one spot that she kept licking and licking until a sore formed, and then she KEPT licking, so she was at risk for infection. It was really hard to keep her from licking while it healed - she'd made a habit of it, even though the original stimulus (me being away) was gone. Plus dogs have the instinct to lick their wounds to clean them, so I really had my hands full.

agzg · #12 02-03-2009, 04:49 PM

Lucky has a lot of problems because he was a rescue. But, you deal with them because you love them, I guess.

Lucky's got hot spots, too, but he doesn't get them from licking - he just licks them when they hurt. He's got a skin condition that creates sores on his belly (from laying in urine - his prior owners were horrible, horrible people) and he licks those. We try to catch them before he becomes obsessive - we put lotion on them to help with the healing and ease the itching. It's just really hard to get that stuff to stay on his paws.

My posting makes him sound like a terror, or some little pathetic thing. He's really a happy doggie, though! He loves people (minus a few - live-in's mom literally scares the pee right out of him), and all he wants most of the time is to sleep, eat, go potty and be pet.

I'm just glad we got an appointment with his regular doctor - in October we had to go to the vet because he had a growth near his pee-pee (only a fatty cyst) and we got the other doctor in the office. He hated her, and to be truthful I didn't like her, either.

HotDamnImAPhiMu · #13 02-03-2009, 08:39 PM

from laying in urine?!

I really don't understand why people who treat dogs so poorly got a dog in the first place.

agzg · #14 02-03-2009, 08:57 PM

They never let him out of his kennel. I can't blame the poor puppy for not being able to hold it.

libramunoz · #15 02-03-2009, 09:15 PM

Some people can be really cruel to dogs! Iggy ran away from his home and found us. He hates fire of any kind (except to sit infront of). He was apparently burned on his ears and he hates it!
Buddy (whose real name is Javier Darwin) has a bb pellet in one of his hind legs. He was a foundling.
The people down here seem to think that it's o.k. to get a puppy for Christmas and when the dog begins to grow to just let it out in the country for someone to take care of. What they don't realize is that when the dogs get left out and find one another, they will create a pack and create HELL for farm owners because of them chasing their cattle.
It happens a lot where I live (yep, in the COUNTRY).