Sheltie stressed out of her mind - help please!

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.

I doubt that it's a food allergy. At least I haven't heard of an allergy where the sole allergic reaction was stress? At least as far as we can see.

As for the food sharing, we usually feed them on the lawn. She gets bored from eating quickly and comes back into the house way before all the food is gone. Also, she's pretty much in charge, so if anything, she's stealing his food :-)
 
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

I'll try that - thanks :-) So far we've been massaging and it works ok to calm her down, the problem is that she get's amped up again really quickly, but I guess it's worth a shot. Thanks :-)
 
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.

I don't think the problem is that she's not getting an outlet for her energy - we walk her daily around 1.5 hours, including running unleashed in the woods / by the beach - also, she's playing with the puppy a lot of the time and they too run around like crazy in the yard (since she's much much faster that the pup, but around half his weight, she's developed this technique where she'll run around him until he gets confused and then pummel him from the side, knocking him over - it looks funny as hell and they get along great :-)).

Anyway, the walks are solo - we don't walk them together, since we want the pup to make his own judgment calls in foreign surroundings. It's mostly my girlfriend walking her, since I'm training the GSD, but she gets plenty of alone-time.

I'm not sure if I should just assume that it's puppy-behaviour - if it is, it's a rather extreme case, but I'm worried about her stress condition becoming chronic :(
 
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.

She did mellow out initially when we moved, yes. But I'm not sure the lawn was the cause of that, as much as the removal from the apartment setting with all the distractions it included. We lived on the ground floor with big panorama windows in a nice, but crowded neighborhood and I think she reacted to all the people and dogs passing by right outside our window. Either way it's hard to know what the reason was - it could be simply that she was put in foreign surroundings and no longer felt she needed to "guard" the home.

It could also be the exercise thing, but so far, our observation is that the more exercise she gets (we tried upping the walks / rumps several times), the more stressed she gets.
 
It could also be the exercise thing, but so far, our observation is that the more exercise she gets (we tried upping the walks / rumps several times), the more stressed she gets.

Straight after exercise most dogs will still be a little hyper - their adrenalin levels will remain high for a while. Give her time to adjust to the puppy and move - its a lot for a young dog to deal with, esp if she lacks confidence. Often lack of confidence in a dog can manifest in other ways like poor behaviour, hyperactivity, aggression, attention seeking behaviour. Keep going the way you are with individual time and give her some time to realise she isnt being usurped. If you dont notice a change within a couple of months then she may have anxiety (this is relatively common in working breeds) and your vet may help with that. As mentioned, there are also natural therapies that can help with anxiety. And I thoroughly recommend massages for stressed out dogs.
 
I doubt that it's a food allergy. At least I haven't heard of an allergy where the sole allergic reaction was stress? At least as far as we can see.

As for the food sharing, we usually feed them on the lawn. She gets bored from eating quickly and comes back into the house way before all the food is gone. Also, she's pretty much in charge, so if anything, she's stealing his food :-)
I was thinking her stealing his food. I assumed she was getting big dog food and he was getting a puppy food. Of course if it is the same it is irrelevant. Also by allergy I was thinking her feeling bad and it having the side effect of stress. Hopefully you can get her back to happy :(
 
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