Controlling, Obsessive and Neurotic Spaniel. Our journey to calmness [6]

An update? Well unfortunately there isn't one. Again we have hit a bit of a wall - well actually it feels like we are still further back then when we first started this journey.

Prior to seeing a behaviourist, Roo went out for an offlead adventure once a day. At weekends we would go to the beach, Roo would go to the groomers, come to our parent's houses, we would have people over. Roo's life was like any other "normal" dog. Although all of these caused a great deal of stress to us and Roo. But to the outside world and sometimes to us, we have gone backwards.

A lot of people say to us, oh it can't be that bad Roo used to go paddleboarding with you. You took her on holiday, she was always at the park having fun. But what they didn't see was the struggle to do that. The reactiveness, the 6am mornings at the park or beach so they would be quiet. Her lunging on her lead and non stop pulling. The complete restlessness at home.

Although life is less stressful now because we don't do these things, it is hard to not feel deflated and defeated.

Roo is still only in our dinning room in her safe space. She plays in our garden. We do training in the house and garden. We practice loose lead walking in the house and sometimes make it out the front gate. We can't have people over and Roo doesn't see or interact with anyone other than us, and sometimes our neighbour if she sees her at the gate.

We have tried bringing her into the living room but she just gets back to her old ways. Chewing her mat, wandering around, attacking the plants, trying to get on the sofa. Just doing lots of attention seeking.

Her anxiety levels are still so high. Seeing a person in the distance when loose lead walking can be enough to disrupt her for the rest of the day. If someone knocks on the door, this can set her back. Or sometimes for reasons we don't know, she is still having bad days.

Behaviour modification for anxiety is a long road, we were prepared for that. Well maybe not as much as we thought we were.

When we were told it would take a few months, we thought ok. But now three months into the journey and even further back then when we first started, it is hard to see an end. Maybe Roo won't ever be able to leave the house, maybe she won't ever be able to leave the dinning room. And that breaks our hearts.

On 1st October, Roo is off to the vets for her annual boosters and we will be asking the vets to prescribe her medication for her anxiety. The hope is that this will give her the break she needs to allow us to be able to work on threshold training and coping skills. Maybe she will be able to come off them in the future, maybe not. We just want to be able to give her the best life possible, whatever that ends up looking like.