Our very scared puppy

[persephone]

I hope it all works - sounds promising so far . Keep us posted , please. Penny is lucky she landed with understanding people! 

[Kirislin]

I wonder if her transportation down to you might’ve terrified her and sort of imprinted on her brain. I don’t know how to describe it, but my puppy was a bit of a loner although liked trotting along with her outside I think, from what the breeder told me. 
when I got him flown down he was terrified and also completely shut down.  He improved fairly quickly but there’s some things I notice about him and I wonder if his natural temperament along with a frightening experience of being flown to a strange place and a person he didn’t know, at a sensitive and impressionable age might’ve influenced his behaviour.

do you think it’s possible something like this has affected your puppy too?

[raineth]

55 minutes ago, Kirislin said:

I wonder if her transportation down to you might’ve terrified her and sort of imprinted on her brain. I don’t know how to describe it, but my puppy was a bit of a loner although liked trotting along with her outside I think, from what the breeder told me. 
when I got him flown down he was terrified and also completely shut down.  He improved fairly quickly but there’s some things I notice about him and I wonder if his natural temperament along with a frightening experience of being flown to a strange place and a person he didn’t know, at a sensitive and impressionable age might’ve influenced his behaviour.

do you think it’s possible something like this has affected your puppy too?

I think the flight definitely did not help for sure but I just don’t think it’s the only thing going on. If it was a one off experience and she had been well socialised I would have expected her to bounce back quicker. Instead we’re nearly three months on and my son can’t get within three metres of her and my daughter cannot get within patting distance. She’s just so scared of people in general. 
We have also met her litter mate and she is the same. We got them together and they were both so stressed that they didn’t even acknowledge each other’s presence.

[asal]

was waiting at mascot for a flight and watched the baggage train arrive with two dog crates as well on it. the driver parked it beside the plane and they began loading the luggage.  the plane parked in the bay beside it turned on its turbines and began to back up.   the noise must have been deafening to a human what it was to those two dogs would have been 1,000 fold and they were obviously terrified as the crates were rocking with the dogs efforts to escape, one almost rolled off the baggage train.  I hate to think of the trauma those two dogs went through. I could see the logo of the carrier on the crates and phoned them. they said once they are loaded on the baggage train the dogs are  out of their control once the baggage handlers have loaded them on the train to the planes. This needs to be rectified. apparently the dogs are always loaded last which means they are exposed to this way too long when it happens

 

[Paul777]

I'm so sorry you're going through this. 
Behavioural issues like this can be so hard to correct. 
Unfortunately it sounds like Penny will not ever be a happy confident dog. 

Several years ago I bought a 10wo Rotti pup. He was a handful from the get-go. 
He had chronic PICA so bad that I had to take him to toilet muzzled and on a lead. 
He treated life as one big game and would not take me seriously unless I stood over him and read him the riot act. 

Taking advice that dogs will often settle down by 18mo, I persevered with him. 
At 16mo he triggered a permanent back injury. I could barely walk and needed to be in hospital. 
Over three days I tried to find a kennel that could take him but as soon as I mentioned "60kg with behavioural issues" none were prepared to take him on. 

By the 3rd day my health had deteriorated where my GP ordered me to hospital [as it turned out I was also suffering from diverticulitis and a lung infection] I had no other choice but to put him to sleep. [No way could I have sent him to the pound - he was my responsibility] 

As hard as that was, although I loved the big lug, while laying in the hospital bed, I realised that I never really enjoyed him. He was just hard work. 
Although putting him to sleep was terribly distressing [which he thought was a big game] I felt relief that a load had been lifted from my shoulders. 
I did my best and gave him every chance.

Sadly, sometimes our best efforts are not enough. 
Once one has exhausted all avenues to rehabilitate, sending a dog to the rainbow bridge is the kindest act of all. 

[coneye]

It would really annoy the hell out of me to think that this breeder had conned me , possibly if it had been returned conned someone else and been paid twice ,, i honestly would get all the info together ,   get a letter from my vet explaining  what the dog had , how long ect ect ,, document it all together with a list of phone calls , letters ,  ect ect ,, pay a couple of hunfdred dollars more and take them to the small claims crt , no lawyers allowed , just you and them and hopefully a judge who see's the breeder for what they are

[raineth]

Hey guys, I just wanted to drop in with an update. I also appreciate your posts and responses even if I have not responded directly to all of them. 

 

gosh it’s hard to know what to write. It’s been such a painful and difficult experience. I feel so much pressure to help her and get her going better but I feel like a mechanic without a tool box a lot of the time. I don’t know how far we can get and I’m trying to be realistic but also optimistic. I wish I could come here and say that I’ve got a plan and we’re doing great and I’ve found some deeper meaning from the whole experience but we’re not there yet. 

 

The good news is that Penny is making progress. She’s confident enough in most parts of the house now. She is even opting to go into the front yard sometimes and the front yard is pretty scary because there can be people walking past and the sound of kids playing and noisy cars. She can now be in the same room as our son without feeling scared. 

 

The most amazing thing happened two nights ago when I went to take our other dog for a walk and Penny decided that she wanted to come too! She actually did really quite well on the walk as it was late and no one was around. Other than this I don’t take her out more than a couple of times a week to secluded locations. If she gets stressed it can take her a couple of days to be ok again. 

 

One of the most tricky things is that she is just so disinterested in food but this too has shown some improvement. When she does eat it’s like even the slightest noise will put her off. It means that when we give her her medication mixed in with some good quality wet food we all wait with bated breath for her to finish. Whilst I’m on this topic I want to say thank goodness for Big Pharma because her Fluoxetine has held the line for us. 

 

Interestingly Penny has met up with her sister a couple of times. Her sister is from the same litter and they were together until they were five months old when Penny came to us. Her sister came to live in the same town one month later. But it’s really weird as it’s like they don’t know each other at all. Penny in particular just won’t even acknowledge her sister. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t seen each other since they were eight weeks but they lived together until they were five months. They first met back up after being separated for only one month and there was no acknowledgement between them. I just find it so strange. 
 

Anyway I thought it was time to include a photo and it’s a pretty cute photo. This is Penny snuggled up to our big boy Brian.

[raineth]

On 15/01/2022 at 10:53 AM, Paul777 said:

I'm so sorry you're going through this. 
Behavioural issues like this can be so hard to correct. 
Unfortunately it sounds like Penny will not ever be a happy confident dog. 

Several years ago I bought a 10wo Rotti pup. He was a handful from the get-go. 
He had chronic PICA so bad that I had to take him to toilet muzzled and on a lead. 
He treated life as one big game and would not take me seriously unless I stood over him and read him the riot act. 

Taking advice that dogs will often settle down by 18mo, I persevered with him. 
At 16mo he triggered a permanent back injury. I could barely walk and needed to be in hospital. 
Over three days I tried to find a kennel that could take him but as soon as I mentioned "60kg with behavioural issues" none were prepared to take him on. 

By the 3rd day my health had deteriorated where my GP ordered me to hospital [as it turned out I was also suffering from diverticulitis and a lung infection] I had no other choice but to put him to sleep. [No way could I have sent him to the pound - he was my responsibility] 

As hard as that was, although I loved the big lug, while laying in the hospital bed, I realised that I never really enjoyed him. He was just hard work. 
Although putting him to sleep was terribly distressing [which he thought was a big game] I felt relief that a load had been lifted from my shoulders. 
I did my best and gave him every chance.

Sadly, sometimes our best efforts are not enough. 
Once one has exhausted all avenues to rehabilitate, sending a dog to the rainbow bridge is the kindest act of all. 

thanks for sharing your story Paul. It’s such a difficult situation. It really resonates with me. I feel so aware that we have no back up plan with her as she is so scared of other people she can’t be looked after by anyone else.

Our daughter has been in hospital 300km away for nearly a month now and one of us has always had to stay home to care for Penny. It’s been really hard. It’s a big sacrifice to make. I’m also worried that one day we’ll be backed into a corner.

sounds like you did everything for your big lad 

 

 

On 17/01/2022 at 9:37 AM, coneye said:

It would really annoy the hell out of me to think that this breeder had conned me , possibly if it had been returned conned someone else and been paid twice ,, i honestly would get all the info together ,   get a letter from my vet explaining  what the dog had , how long ect ect ,, document it all together with a list of phone calls , letters ,  ect ect ,, pay a couple of hunfdred dollars more and take them to the small claims crt , no lawyers allowed , just you and them and hopefully a judge who see's the breeder for what they are

I hear ya. I am really annoyed but I am also really burned out. I have had to block her as interacting with her was making my stress levels go through the roof. When we rang the department of fair trading they told us we would need to sue and I just don’t think I can go through the stress of that. I will still put in a complaint to the governing body. 

[Dogsfevr]

Has Penny thyroid levels been checked 

[persephone]

4 hours ago, raineth said:

I thought it was time to include a photo and it’s a pretty cute photo.

Ohhh..I am glad you put in a photo . It IS a cute shot! 

[raineth]

2 hours ago, Dogsfevr said:

Has Penny thyroid levels been checked 

yeah she had all the basics done for a presentation like this and it was all normal. Unless it’s something really obscure her symptoms don’t match any of the obvious medical causes for anxiety.

[_PL_]

She's beautiful  

[PrisPeck]

A poor little girl. How sorry I am for her and for you.

[Kirislin]

Is Penny a whippet?