The last two days have been rather hellish and today has started in similar vein. On his off leash walks yesterday and day before, Hero has been jumped literally by two different dogs in two different places and neither of the other owners have made any attempt to recall and basically have not given a toss. First time was a female Labrador who just would not leave him alone when he was trying to get away from her and yesterday a poodle charged across the field and hit him sideways on knocking him off balance, then was nipping him and jumping all over him. Hero became really unsettled and only way I could stop this full on 'attack' was to grab the poodle so Hero could get away. Not ideal I know. But Hero was getting extremely stressed and he won't growl or bark at other dogs. Needless to say I wasn't impressed with the other owners who thought it was ok to ignore their dogs behaviours and told them what I thought. Hero has never had problems with other dogs before and has loved meeti g and playing on his walks or just ignoring if more interested in something else. But after twice in two days he's developed anxiety issues. Both evenings he has been sick once, he won't let me out of his sight and if I have to go in another room he will tear anything apart that he can get his teeth into in seconds including carpets, furniture, his safe place, skirting boards, his bed and just about anything else he can. He has never been like this before. Have tried calming sessions sitting on the floor with music and grooming him which helps temporarily. He attacks my husband biting him and shredding his clothes and my son also. Time outs don't help as they're winding him up more. Kong's only help for a short time and his training and play have just gone out of control in two short days. Really can't believe how this has triggered him so quickly. Any advice please on how to get him through this. Will go different places for walks if he will go. He's quite reluctant at the moment and starts howling if we go outside. My happy little fella seems to have crashed at the moment and I really don't want this to escalate for him
Could it be that the experience has made his cortisol hormone to surge I wonder??This can take quite a time to get back to normal levels I understand . Your calming sessions and keeping things calm where possible may well help hopefully. Maybe you’ll see some return to calmer behaviour over the next few days hopefully? I guess it may also be related to trigger stacking as his general baseline arousal levels may be elevated so many things become triggers?? These are just my thoughts, I hope things get back soon to a calmer state for you all .
