Echo

[jesse girl]

Re: Echo

she sounds like a really good dog mandy and aims to please

good luck with training

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

Echo has been doing great in her training classes. She's not as distracted as I thought she'd be. The only problem is getting her to do as well out of class as she does in class. She is a smart girl though. She picks up on tricks quickly, and she's also getting much better about her counter surfing and seek-and-destroy-when-I'm-not-in-the-room habits.

She still comes to work with me. She has a great time playing with the other dogs, big and small. My manager and coworker are bottle feeding two chihuahua puppies right now (they're two weeks old) and she loves them! She tries to take care of them like they're hers.

She sleeps in her crate at night now, and does great! I'm still gradually leaving her longer and longer during the day, and she's done pretty good with that too. The log treat toy ended up getting the end chewed off of it. I ordered her an extreme chewer Kong to replace it. I need to get some baby food or something instead of peanut butter to use as filling. She's going to get fat between the training treats and crate treats, lol.

I made an appointment for Friday morning to get her DNA tested. It'll be interesting to see what the results are. Everyone guessing has been driving me a little crazy, so I decided I'd just find out. The people at training class think Boxer is in the mix (I think mainly because of the red brindle "tiger stripes"), but I don't see that very strongly. I lean more towards greyhound for the tiger stripes. I wouldn't be surprised if the results came back as a mix of sight hound/herding dog. I see tendencies towards both types with her. I think results take a couple weeks, so I have time to get a betting pool going, lol.

[Soaphie & Sydney's Mom]

Re: Echo

Cannot wait to see what the DNA test results show!

[Rover]

Re: Echo

She sounds so great. <3 Post pictures if you can!

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

I'm still waiting for Echo's DNA results. I called the vet since it's been over 3 weeks, but they haven't gotten them yet. I was going to try and call Royal Canin tomorrow and check the kit status.

Echo still pretty much goes everywhere with me. I've started running with her too. It tires her out, but it doesn't help when I actually have to leave her home. She has major separation anxiety from ME. Anyone else leaves her, no problem. I can't go anywhere without my furry shadow. I'm having problems with crating her. At first, she didn't do bad being left alone for the shorter times, but as we extended the crating time, she's gotten bad, even with short times. She always destroys something (bed, blanket, pillow, bowl, etc). So I can't really leave anything in the crate with her. I do give her a Kong/stuffed bone, but she's gotten to where she ignores that and goes for whatever else is in the crate with her. I also leave on music for her and I've tried putting in shirts/pillows with my scent on it (she tears those up). I even gave her some calming/anxiety relief drops last time and it did nothing! I don't know what to do. I am going to talk to the trainer, but she's at a competition right now. I need to be able to leave her. I'm applying for other jobs now, and I won't always be able to bring her with me to work. Even now, I have to leave her home sometimes when we're busy. So far, someone else has been home, but she will cry and look for me for hours after I leave.

Anyways, here are some pics of our recent adventures. Aside from the separation anxiety, she is a lot of fun and a good dog.

Bandana she got from the fair:


Playing at the pool at work (she still won't willingly swim)


Beach day (she loved it!)


After our first run together


Pouting because Dakota stole her bone


Geocaching


Some presents she got for being good while I was off house sitting


She got her BarkBox yesterday and picked petals off the sunflower toys


Edit 5/18/16: Seems Royal Canin is not quite on the ball. They say results were sent out on the 10th, but neither my vet nor I received them. The email addresses were correct. They said they'd resend, but I haven't gotten them yet. I called the vet and gave them a head's up to check for them again. If we don't get them today I guess the vet will have to call them.

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

After calling again and getting them to send it to a different email address, I got the results! This is definitely interesting. I never would've guessed some of these breeds. One side was mixed beyond 3 generations, so they didn't get any strong breed markers for that side, but here's what they say:


Belgian Malinois, Chow Chow, Doberman Pinscher, Rottweiler (& one mixed great-grandparent)

And as for the mixed side:

Herding group and Terrier group most strongly detected

[jesse girl]

Re: Echo

shes all mixed up . she is her own breed

my daughters dog is similar with separation anxiety with her and not anybody else he spent a year with me and no real problems

went down for her graduation and i left him and jesse in my vehicle just within sight of her and he chewed on my seat . i let him know i was upset

i would keep doing what your doing as far as socializing and training and avoiding the situations that triggers the anxiety maybe if your not the last one to leave echo alone may help or sneak out the back door

it may never be perfect but i think you 2 will figure it out

she looks like fun

[Rover]

Re: Echo

Such a precious dog, and it's so cute she's so lovey!!! Ugh, what a happy dog. Pet em for me

[Auddog]

Love those pictures! She is such a beautiful and happy girl
Separation anxiety sounds like it's really difficult to deal with. I wonder if you try cutting back the time again, like starting over on the training, if it would get easier.
Best of luck to you!!

[momofdecker]

Re: Echo

She's a beautiful girl mixed with a lot of fun breeds.

What a stinker when it comes to being left in her crate. Toby went through a (long) phase of separation anxiety. We had his crate on hard wood floors and he'd manage to kick his tray out (he'd eat anything we put in it too - so it didn't have anything extra in it) and push the entire crate across the floor. We even tried covering his crate and he ate the blanket that covered it.

It may have been Tara that recommended getting a more enclosed crate for him (the ones I describe as looking like a large cat carrier). We were able to get past that part of his seek and destroy mission before we got to that point. No tips or tricks - I think it simply took him (a long) while to feel confident enough being left alone. He'll be three in Sept. and we still have his crate up. He's (finally) gotten into the routine of going into it every morning. He goes out to potty and then I put the treat filled kongs in his crate while he's outside. He runs right to the crate and lays down to eat them after coming back inside. Hang in there - hopefully she'll come around sooner rather than later.

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

I got a new water setup for her crate. Someone at the training class recommended metal flat backed buckets with a brass clip. I got one at the feed store and installed it. I don't think she'll be able to dump it, but we'll see. I haven't left her alone with it yet. I think I'm going to have to take everything but her Kong and chew toys out until she feels better about being left. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it sooner rather than later. It's not the crate itself. She will go into it on her own during the day and also will go straight into it at night for bedtime. It's just being left. I imagine part of it could be that she came from the shelter. It's only been two months. Hopefully she'll come around soon and feel confident that I'm not ever going to completely abandon her.

[Rubytuesday]

Re: Echo

Hi Mandy, Separation anxiety is a tough one and I have been watching Betsy closely because I want to be sure I don't inadvertently encourage anymore anxiety when she is apart from me. She has started whining at the gate when I am strapping the kayak to the car at which point I either ignore or give brief disapproval; nasty look something like that. The other day when I came home she gave me a ton of kisses which I was really quiltily enjoying. Now I have started to walk past her when I get home for the first 15 min. or so.

Charlie helps with the crating because his crate is right next to hers. Is there a way you can encourage Dakota to be with her, maybe a bed beside her crate in a closed off room. Of course switching locations might exacerbate the situation too.

The really important thing you don't want to do....forgive me if I mentioned it before...is to magnify any intensity when leaving or arriving home. Ignoring them up to 1/2 hr. before crating and after arriving home may be needed. Try to completely disengage from her not only in your actions but emotionally. Dogs are very in tune with these types of adjustments.

The other thing you could try is a Thunder Coat but I'm not sure how comfortable I am leaving it on a dog in the crate.

With the music- if you only have it on when you leave she may actually take this as a signal to start getting anxious. Turning it on at random times when home or at varying times before departure will help to prevent the negative associations if she hasn't already made the connection.

In some cases it can be unsafe for them to be in the crate. If you can set up a video camera it can help you see if she is really thrashing around the whole time or if it is just puppy boredom destruction.

To help with e messy water situation you might put ice cubes in her water dish and she might look at that as interesting enough to take her mind of departing Mandy.

Good luck, Tara

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

Thanks for the tips, Tara. I've never had a dog that is literally like my shadow before. Piper was very independent, and Dakota & the others have belonged to my parents. I do try to ignore her and make my coming/going as unemotional as possible. She did pretty good the other day when I had to take one of my rats to the vet. I didn't leave anything with her though. Just a few ice cubes in the water bucket, a stuffed Kong, and a chew toy. I left her with a blanket a couple nights ago and she ripped it some, but didn't completely shred it. I'm hoping that it's something she'll grow out of. I don't think she's really panicking about being left in the crate (if she really wanted to get out, I'm sure she could figure out how to flip the latches), I think it's just a tantrum about being left. The music we were leaving on isn't something we listen to often. My dad was thinking it seemed to calm her more. I left the normal music we listen to on the last few times, and she seemed to do a little better, so maybe the music was making her anxious.

Right now, she's very comfortably curled up in her crate (it's open) after a day at the dog park. We went to a street party supporting the shelter she was adopted from first, then I took her to a new park. She loved the new park and ran for hours playing! If it were closer to the house, I'd buy a membership, but unfortunately we don't have a lot of dog parks and this one (seemingly the best one) is an hour away. I did buy a gift certificate on sale though, so we have 5 more visits for the price of two!

She loves loves loves playing with other dogs! The local shelters are having heavily discounted or free adoptions this weekend, and I've been trying to convince my parents that she needs a friend more her age. I really do think she'd do much better with her separation anxiety and from her finding things she shouldn't be chewing if she had another dog to distract her. My dad thinks it'll just be like having Thing 1 & Thing 2 running around causing double trouble though. So for now, I just have to keep taking her to the parks or work (as long as I can with work- I may not be there much longer).

[Soaphie & Sydney's Mom]

Re: Echo

Do you think the anxiety has to do with being in the crate, rather than with you?

I see that Echo will sleep in the crate with the door open, from your message below.

Have you tried leaving her for 10 minutes with freedom to roam the house? Karl was NOT a fan of the crate....excessive drool, whining, etc. we bought him a thunder shirt and let him roam free. Problem solved. We don't even use the thunder shirt anymore (I actually think the thunder shirt was more for me, than him .

Recommend a long walk or a three mile or so run before trying it for the first time.

Thoughts?

[ceruleanblue]

Re: Echo

I'm pretty sure it has to do with me. She sleeps in the crate (completely closed in) at night. She has no problem going right in and being shut in when I'm just in the next room or something.