Hi all, Lucius recently has been displaying some odd behaviour. Recently he's been really anxious in the house, barking and jumping up at the slightest movement. He lies by my feet all day and if i move even an inch he jumps up and runs across the room. He paces then turns and lies back in the same position by my feet. Sudden noises like car doors make him bark, we've been working with him on this and he seems to not react as much as he used too. However outside the house he's really confident and calm. He gets walked 3 times a day, in the morning he gets let off lead for a run round our local park, lots of screaming kids and dogs and he's not even phased. We play fetch in the park and it tires him out a lot, then in the afternoon he's given a walk round the estate which is around half an hour and then again in the evening. It doesnt matter how tired he is he still jumps up. He has a memory foam bed to sleep on but doesnt use it, we have to tell him to lie on it to get him out from under our feet to prevent him from jumping up every few minuites. We really dont know how to help him, I feel it might be part of his PRA losing his sight is definatly a big amount of stress on him but how do I help him adjust? Any help would be greatly accepted.
Oh, I saw you say on the other thread he is 3-4yo. Often with sensitive dogs, one scary experience can become generalised fairly rapidly and 'expected' to reoccur at any moment. It may be that something happened which made a noise and which did scare him recently - you dropped something or he heard something outside etc etc - and he has now become quite sound-sensitive. This may have happened when you weren't home, so you didn't see it. Because this happened when he was in the house at the time, that is where the fear has gotten attached to - which is why he still feels perfectly safe with noises outside. I would get an Adaptil diffuser up and running in the room where he spends most of his time and also try a course of Zylkene - both are natural and non-prescription and you can get them from Amazon. You can also buy a cheap white noise machine which makes - well - white noise, that can mask sounds outside and also leave R4 on when you are out, for the same reason. (As long as sounds on the radio don't worry him.) If these measures don't work and it continues, then you might need to do some specific noise desensitisation exercises and/or work with a behaviourist on it.
Thanks for the help. Some sounds dont worry him and I've found putting the radio on seems to calm him. The big issue is him jumping up if we move. He is a bit of a velcro dog and follows me everywhere but is happy to be left alone if needed. I feel most of this is due to the fact that he may have PRA, he's seeing the specialist again who said she thinks PRA as he's night blind. We'll know more about that in the next few weeks when he sees the specialist again and she will examine him and may do a scan of his eye.
