We have a 3 1/2 year old dog Duke who has suffered with over excitement and anxiety his whole life. He has been on Clonicalm for 3 years. He also has hip dysplasia for which he is on daily pain killers. Despite my best efforts at training whenever there is any change in his routine he goes crazy. Because of his hips he can only go for short walks and I’m sure a lack of exercise isn’t helping his excitement levels. He saw another vet behaviourist today who thinks he is autistic, has OCD tendencies and fidgets. The vet seems well qualified with all of the appropriate behavioural professional memberships. She has changed his medication to Zoloft, has prescribed Xanax as a calmative for the medication change over, and has given him a stronger pain killer. She has also recommended some physiotherapy. Hydrotherapy has been recommended previously, but this vet thinks he will become too stressed and anxious. Has anyone else heard of a dog being diagnosed as autistic?
No. Goodness me. Human mental health has been through enough with diagnoses proliferating to an insane degree, without canine mental health following!! Looking at people for a second: The problem with A Label is that it becomes a dead-end. The person just says "I have Depression" or "I have Anxiety" and that's that. Like "I have a broken leg" or "I have eczema". The reason this isn't helpful, is because it discourages thinking about what's BEHIND the depression or the anxiety - how did it arise? What has the person lost, to cause them to be depressed? Why have they directed angry feelings at themselves, instead of at other people? And so on.... The other thing that Labels do, is they prevent a detailed and personal account of what someone feels is wrong. Instead of "I have Depression", there could be "I feel like there is no point in living or nothing good ahead in my life. I feel like a hollow emptiness or a heaviness pressing down on me"..... all of which communicates WAY better how the person is feeling and what's going on with them, then just 'I have Depression". The third thing that labels do, is they ascribe a permanence to the way someone feels by crystallising it into A Condition. There may actually be some days when the person feels good and happy. On those days, if we viewed the day by itself, that person does not have 'Depression' - on that day. But health care sees it as an ongoing condition, a semi-permanent thing. So - moving back to dogs. What does it mean to describe a dog as "autistic"? What is his behaviour like? What is he actually doing? Ditto for OCD. Slapping some fancy sounding labels on a dog, really isn't going to help anyone at all. Just as for people, the label stops thought and it stops attempts to come up with meaning for the behaviour: Look at your post, as an example - no one reading it is left with any concrete idea of exactly what your dog is doing that is problematic. Because we just have stuck labels on the dog, instead. And there is a semi-permanence to it, the dog is viewed as permanently having this 'thing', instead of viewing his behaviour as potentially malleable and changeable via behaviour modification.... So: To get some other ideas and thoughts on approaches to your dog, we really need to hear exactly what he is doing, in what circumstances, and how this is problematic... can you give more details?
