Getting reacquainted with Sassy Blue
Sassy Blue is an adoption return. I brought her home on May 31 of this year and quickly saw that I now have a different dog than the one that I adopted out 17 months ago. Among other things, Sassy now suffers from storm phobia.
I fostered Sassy Blue for several months at the end of 2017, taking her through heartworm treatment. My dog, Otis, doesn’t always behave with the best manners when around other dogs, but he liked Sassy Blue and her quiet ways. I knew he’d accept her pretty quickly.
Then and Now
Crating
At the time I placed Sassy, she loved her crate and would often take naps in “her” space. She slept in her crate at night and it was never a problem to ask her “to kennel up!” when I needed to leave the house.
Now, she isn’t happy in her crate. She isn’t fighting to get out, or I wouldn’t make her stay in. She simply tries to avoid going in, and I can tell she is a bit stressed because she won’t eat the treats I leave in there.
Perhaps it’s that she never was asked to use her crate except when company came over or she needed a time-out from Ollie, the puppy in the home or perhaps something particular occurred that etched a memory and she’s more crate-avoidant.
Isolation Intolerance or Separation Anxiety?
In addition, Sassy had no difficulty being left at home. Previously, I had no problems leaving her and Otis, crated, while I left home for several hours.
Now, Sassy has, albeit mild, some anxiety as she watches me prepare to leave the house. She gets concerned when I change my shirt! It’s enough of a behavior that if I don’t work to address it now, it has the potential to get worse.
Perhaps it is because her prior family didn’t believe dogs should be left alone. Anytime her family left the home, Sassy got to ride along. She’s come to know this as her routine and she expects it. I’m unable to meet this expectation of hers. When left alone loose in the house, she vacillates between laying on the couch and pacing.
Storm Phobias
As if this wasn’t enough, Sassy now has visible storm anxiety/phobia. I don’t remember her being even the slightest bit concerned during storms.
It’s taken a few summer pop-up showers for me to observe her behavior, but she clearly overreacts to the sights and sounds of thunderstorms. I have no idea how she’d act if she were alone (without humans) during a thunderstorm, and I’m not prepared to ask her to do that for my own knowledge. Not yet.
It might be due to the fact that Sassy’s family was in the path of hurricane Michael last summer. They live just a hundred miles or so from the Florida coast so I’m pretty sure the storm conditions were nothing short of awful. A single storm event can be frightening enough to bring about storm anxiety/phobias in some dogs. Riding out a hurricane can be traumatic.
Why I'm Paying Attention To All of These Behaviors
Based on what I’ve read, anxieties and phobias, when unmanaged or untreated, can expand to other areas. As an example, dogs with storm phobia can develop fireworks phobia or if they are originally afraid of thunder, they can develop fears of wind, rain, and dark skies.
In addition, many dogs with separation anxiety do not do well being crated when their humans leave the house.
So, if I choose to ignore these behaviors, Sassy has the potential to get worse over time.
What We Are Doing For Sassy's Crate Resitance
We are being very gentle but persistent.
This doesn’t mean I have some sort of rigid schedule where I say, “OK, Sassy Pants, it’s 10 a.m. and your schedule calls for 15 minutes in your crate whether you want to or not.”
It’s a dance.
Some days Sassy says, OK, I’ll tolerate spending a little time in my crate. Some days, she lets me know otherwise. By the same token, some days I can take her for a car ride and some days I can’t.
We ALL Have Days Where We Want A Break
You have bad days, right? You usually get in your 45-minute-walk for your health and wellness. But some days, you know? You just want to stay indoors and lay on the sofa. Sometimes you push yourself forward and some days you give yourself a day off.
Dogs have bad days, too. Days when they don’t want to “work.” Days when their head just isn’t in the game. If we watch, we’ll hear them when they say, “I’m just not feelin’ this protocol today, can we lighten it up today? Other days, they step up to the plate and deliver a home run when we give them a little nudge.
How Sassy Talks To Me
I like to feed Sassy in her crate, open door. Sometimes she goes in with all fours to eat, and some days, she sticks two feet out. It’s her barometer of sorts – where she is on her tolerance/stress level. It tells me a lot about where her head is each day.
At night, I ask Sassy to sleep in her crate in my room. Why? It’s the easiest place to start. EmmyLou taught me this – many separation anxiety dogs do quite alright at night in a crate with their humans in the room. If we have a baseline for crate tolerance, I can usually build on that.
However, the other night, Sassy spoke to me.
Two Back-To-Back Stressful Days
This week we experienced several days of a risk of pop-up thunderstorms. On top of that, two days in a row I’ve needed to run errands which put me away from home for nearly two hours each time. I asked Sassy to crate up both days. I’ve learned enough about her to know her anxiety so far is mild. However, I still want her to move toward the idea that crates are cool and it’s really OK. Mama will return.
I’ve watched her on my nanny cam to make sure she was not demonstrating any overt signs of anxiety such as panting, pacing, pawing, barking, etc. A little discomfort is OK but not so much that she cannot process the situation. She remained still and in a resting position, but she clearly wasn’t resting, she was WAITING. <– a big difference. This was a hardship for her.
Unpredictable Weather
When the first pop-up storm came, I wasn’t prepared despite my efforts to be prepared. I’d been watching the forecast and the weather radar all afternoon. But – pop-up storms mean just that, they pop up. And one popped up right on top of us. I didn’t even have time to get Sassy’s Thundershirt on her and certainly didn’t have time to dose her with Storm Stress drops. These situations are why sometime pre-preparing your dog for the possibility of storms is a good idea. I should have long ago put her thundershirt on her.
While that first storm wasn’t bad at all, Sassy was quite anxious as she watched the winds picked up, and I learned wind is a trigger for her. I really wished for curtains on all of my windows. She was pretty worked up, panting and trembling pretty hard for about 45 minutes even though the storm lasted about 20 minutes. She was exhausted afterward and she slept hard until bedtime.
The next night, I was prepared as the forecast called for 3 hours worth of potential bad weather. I closed all the blinds and closed the door to the den, dressed Sassy in her thundershirt, and as the line of storms approached on the weather radar, I timed her Storm Stress drops dose.
Sassy, Otis, and I hunkered down in the den in a big pile on the sofa, box fan blowing, TV volume up. Sassy was clueless about the wind (she couldn’t see or hear it) and only became stressed with one rumble of thunder. This time, she didn’t pant. She trembled and remained alert until the storm passed. I was very pleased with her successful evening.
Don't Ask Me To Flex One More Time Today
As we readied for bed, Sassy altered her behavior. Instead of following me to the crates, she jumped up on an upholstered chair, looked at me and snorted. I spoke the usual bedtime cue words and she turned her head away to ignore me.
There was a difference in her resistance, something that I can’t explain. But I knew she was saying, “Not tonight. I’ve had enough. Don’t ask me to flex anymore today.”
So I placed a dog bed and blanket on the floor beside the headboard. Sassy crawled in and went directly to sleep.
Did I cave in and let her be the boss? I don’t believe that I did. I believed I listened to her when her behavior said, “I can’t flex one more time today.” I believe when we listen and agree to dance, we build a much stronger bond with our dogs. We build trust on a totally different level.
In a nutshell, I’m getting more in tune with Sassy’s communication and I’m still learning her stressors, triggers, and which tools help her the best. I’m learning when I can nudge her toward working on her anxieties and when I need to give her time off.
Sassy gets triple gold stars for being brave and flexing her coping skills.
