Sheltie stressed out of her mind - help please!

C

Culpa

Forums Regular
Hi there!

We have a bit of a problem with our sheltie after getting a new puppy. I should mention a bit of back-story, I suppose.

We used to have a lot of problems with her being stressed. We'd do puzzletoys, tracking-foundation and obedience to the extent we could motivate her, walk her three times a day (30 to 60 minutes walks) and all the stuff we could think (and read) of to relieve her stress. We lived in an apartment at the time. We never got the problem fully under control.

When I say "stressed" I mean she's "hyper" most of the time. Not just puppy-active and all over the place, but really hyper. Panting, scratching herself, barking at everything (and not just sheltie-barking), but waking up in the middle of the night - often 2-3 times and barking at nothing noticable. She rarely calms down and when she does she'll get back in drive really fast. We can get her to stop barking on command, but she'll resume the barking short after. On top of that she's not food motivated at all - we've found some food that she'll take, but she doesn't care enough about it to actually work for it.

We can motivate her with toys, but that gets her more wound up, so it's not really a good reward. Sometimes it feels like in terms of drive, she's a car, where we can press the speeder and get her up in gear, but there are no brakes on her :-)

Now she's 9 months old and we moved to a house with a big back yard 1 month ago and she was like a transformed dog. She calmed down and was much much easier to work with, which lasted until we got our new puppy (a gsd).

They get along great (the sheltie rules our household with an iron paw), but she's back to being stressed all the time and it's getting worse and we're worried that her stress has become or will become chronic. We've talked to several so-called behaviorists, which have not been able to help us (or have suggested approaches we've already tried). We've also had her x-rayed at the vets in order to try and see if the stress is pain-induced, but the vet could find no indication of such.

At the moment we're massaging her to calm her down, which works to some degree, but she winds back up really quickly. We're getting pretty desperate and other than us missing sleeping more than 2 hours without getting awoken by a barking dog, we're worried for her also.

Any suggestions to handle this are much appreciated!
 
It sound like your problem is pretty extreme stress but have you tried any of the stress reducing plug-ins for dogs they spray a calming scent into the room.
It's probably lavender also try putting lavender in her bed to calm her in the evening maybe in a sache inserted inside if you have a zipper to open the bed cover. I know a friend who dog is on prozac but that was the last resort. Good Luck.
 
Any chance it could be food? Maybe a food allergy? I would chalk it up to crazy puppy except the panting and scratching. Does the GSD eat the same food? If not could she be stealing his and reacting. The fact she calmed once seems to say she can.
 
This might really sound far-fetched, but I found info on-line about an anxiety wrap that can be purchased and I also found info on how to "make" your own anxiety wrap for your dog. I do know someone with a very nervous dog who had success using a wrap she had made for the dog.
 
A trainer, Trish King, suggested holding your dog down to settle it down (starting with very low level of arousal of course). http://www.marinhumanesociety.com/Behavior/Handouts/SettlingTechniques.pdf
So when your dog is just a wee bit amped (don't start training this when your dog is a rocket), you put your dog on its side and just hold it down until you feel the muscles under your hand relax. It's NOT an alpha roll (dog is not on its back but on its side), but a calming procedure. You do it very quietly and calmly. You're not massaging your dog either. Just keeping it still. Might take some time in the beginning for your dog to get used to this (hence start with very low arousal levels).

The other thing you could try is Karen Overall's protocol for relaxation perhaps? http://dogscouts.org/Protocol_for_relaxation.html

Or maybe a calming cap?
 
Jan244 said:
This might really sound far-fetched, but I found info on-line about an anxiety wrap that can be purchased and I also found info on how to "make" your own anxiety wrap for your dog. I do know someone with a very nervous dog who had success using a wrap she had made for the dog.
Click to expand...

Thundershirt.com
supposed to work for many anxieties besides thunder :wink2:
 
Your girl is still only a pup herself, and has now hit adolescence. Many shelties (and it seems many female shelties) have a lot of energy to burn - they are sheepdogs after all. It also sounds like she could be a little uncertain of herself.

Does she still get the one-on-one time with you? She could be seeing that the puppy is playing around and getting lots of attention so is trying to elicit the same response.

She sounds like a dog that would do really well learning fetch. Playing ball will help run off a lot of excess energy (although you do need to make sure she doesnt over do it) and you can use throwing the ball as a reward. I reward my hyper female with ball chasing - should would rather that over food any time. Ball chasing can also be a special activity that she does with you without the puppy around.
 
Jan244 said:
This might really sound far-fetched, but I found info on-line about an anxiety wrap that can be purchased and I also found info on how to "make" your own anxiety wrap for your dog. I do know someone with a very nervous dog who had success using a wrap she had made for the dog.
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I was going to suggest~

I know here I had tried it with one of my son's chihuahua's.I wrapped her in a sheet I had torn,it was fairly wide,and it made a world of differance in her anxiety level.

Eric & Lynn had left the chi's with us one day to do some Christmas shopping on black friday.I had to do something,as Lexie was so stressed that they had left her with us.

May want to give it some thought.I know there was a link to an article back some time ago here on the forum.
Try seaching "anxiety wrap"
 
those anxiety bands made with ideas using
Tellington touch method. It includes massage of certain points to relax body. You can even put old tight t shirt baby size on your pup to get some relief. Cleanrun has some books on it too.
I also would recommend Bach herbal remedies which go loong way to relax body and mind if you have not tried yet.
Unfortunately from what you describe it is just hyperactive temperament some dogs inherit from their parents. Sometimes breeders do not care and do not breed for good temperament, sometimes breeder does not match activity level of the family and a dog. I am assuming you are young people so your breeder thought you could handle it. Most times it mellows with age. Sometimes such dogs excel really well in agility but they are major PITA to live with.
Let me also mention a wild guess- when you got your new house, there was a big yard to Culpa to run, so she mellowed out a bit? I am just thinking that for some dogs, walks with human speed as much as exciting is just not enough, you might need to resort to roller bladders, skateboards, bicycle to run her down. Or find a good dog park where she can run at 50 miles/ hr for couple of hrs and then feel tired enough to not be bothered. Some dogs are like that, they need a farm to run and job to have and unless you are training for National agility team they really not dogs for regular homeowner. Obedience while helpful in basics, is too static for such dogs and they benefit much better from agility, flyball, herding.
 
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dawns2shelties said:
It sound like your problem is pretty extreme stress but have you tried any of the stress reducing plug-ins for dogs they spray a calming scent into the room.
It's probably lavender also try putting lavender in her bed to calm her in the evening maybe in a sache inserted inside if you have a zipper to open the bed cover. I know a friend who dog is on prozac but that was the last resort. Good Luck.
Click to expand...

We used to try that (the feromone thing) for her driving sickness - had absolutely zero effect, in the car or otherwise :-) Thanks for the idea though.
 
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