Dog distress - Seeking ideas

[sasha_feather]

Sorcha is still whining incessantly. I see from my journal that this has been going on for more than a month -- probably more like six weeks. I'm taking her back to the vet on Wednesday to get her thyroid levels checked.

Other things we've tried:
I moved my bed so she can see me better from my crate.
I turned a night light on overnight.
Sitting with her on the couch to watch TV and movies. Three feet away in my chair isn't close enough-- I have to be like, touching and petting her to stop her whining. And I can't type with her on the couch because she paws at the screen and keyboard.
Distracting with treats.
A thundershirt. (Had to take a break from the shirt today because I may have left it on too long yesterday.)

The worst is when I try to lie down for a nap and she won't let me sleep.

I posted on the Greyhound bulletin board-- run by the rescue group-- asking for advice. So far, no help.

She does not seem to be in pain, not that I can tell. She still runs hard at the park, some days, and still hops in and out of the car, walks fine, etc. It seems more like anxiety, but that strange thing it how it started relatively recently.

Any ideas??

Comments

[dogstar]

To be honest, if you were one of my training clients and you'd ruled out a pain issue, I'd be telling you to talk to one of our good local behavior vets about medication, because at that level of anxiety, it's really hard to address the problem with training. I've had meh results with some of the herbal and homeopathic remedies with my anxiousdog clients and excellent results with prozac and ... argh. One other med, I'd have to dig out my notebook to find the notes for that dog.

Dr. Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol (http://www.dogdaysnw.com/doc/OverallRelaxationProtocol.pdf) can be a good first step, training-wise, for addressing anxiety, but at an incessnent level of whining, I'd be pretty concerned about getting the dog to a point she could relax as a baseline.

[meloukhia]

I'm seconding the recommendation for meds, which is something the vet will probably bring up when you take her in. While dogs are not cats, when Leila was at her extreme anxiety state, *nothing* worked to calm her down because she was so spun up, and putting her on ativan made a huge difference in her quality of life. Once she settled down, it got a lot easier to start working on socialising her with Loki (of course, we all know how well THAT'S turning out).