Having a "healthy" dog put to sleep

alyssa_liss

have you got incontact with breed specific rescues for help

http://www.wiccaweys.co.uk/

http://www.bordercollietrustgb.org.uk/

krlyr

Argh, I typed a long post and then my browser crashed. Will attempt to retype for you, I'm currently dealing with separation anxiety in one of my dogs so understand your situation!

Notsosharp

Hiya,

I'm sorry to hear of yours and Bonnie's troubles.

I was just wondering if you had tried these?

http://www.fostbc.org.uk/

They are brilliant and do try their best with every dog, the ones they can't rehome they keep as long term fosters.

krlyr

OK, I'm in a similar-ish situation. My dog's separation anxiety was triggered by a housemove, so not quite as unsettling as losing her main carer, but we have similar - barking, pacing, scratching at the doors, we've had a bit of chewing. Fortuntely no soiling, I imagine that must be quite tough to deal with.

The first things I would look at is potential causes for this anxiety. It's more than likely that it's the huge changes she's suffered but I would want to rule out other factors (either main causes or contributing)
What is she fed on? Diet can play a huge role in behavioural issues.
Is she getting more exercise now than she used to? Does she have any issues out on walks, e.g. reacting towards other dogs (barking, lunging, etc) or getting fixated on things to chase, getting anxious at traffic, etc? If she's stressed out on walks then this could be reflected in her behaviour at home, I'm just wondering if she wasn't walked loads previously, she could perhaps be a bit overwhelmed at the minute?
Health conditions - extra exercise could perhaps be aggravating a joint condition such as arthritis, hip dysplasia or similar? Could be worth a vet check. Having the vet do some bloodwork could be an idea too as there may be an underlying cause. Look into having her thyroid tests as anxiety cna be a symptom of hypothyroid. Is she definately chewing the fur off her legs, furloss can also be a symptom of hypothroid.

If she is deemed healthy then, given the dire situation, you could consider medication. There are several that are used for separation anxiety or anxiety conditions, e.g. Clomicalm, Selgian, fluoxetine, to name a few. These can have side effects so shouldn't be used lightly, but you may prefer to go in "guns blazing" if euthanasia is a real consideration - if you can be a little more patient with the situation (I don't mean that as a dig but if it gives you some light at the end of the tunnel to know that you can get there, eventually), you could look into some slightly less drastic options like calmatives - Zylkene, Calmex, DAP/Adaptil, Pet Remedy, Stressless are a few supplements or products designed to calm a dog. There's the Thundershirt too - like swaddling an anxious baby, the tight top is meant to calm dogs down. Unfortunately none worked for me so I'm debating the medication route, though having just had bloodwork done, the results have shown her to potentially be borderline hypothyroid so I need to go and discuss this with my vet and possibly try synthetic thyroid hormones first.

Regarding behavioural help, rather than any kind of class you really want a good behaviourist to do a home visit. They will come and run over your schedules, your set up/house layout (e.g. some dogs find it better to be confined to one area, some prefer to have access to the whole house), and Bonnie's behaviour and give you a structured plan to follow. Usually with separation anxiety, this is slowly working towards getting Bonnie used to being left and teaching her that it's not the end of the world. If things like putting your shoes and coat on send her into a tizz, you work by desensitizing her to these leaving cues - put your shoes on, take them off, shoes on, shoes off, shoes on, coat on, sit down, coat off, shoes off and so on. Once she stops reacting to these, you go to the next trigger - this might be opening the hallway door, so you open the door, close it, open it, close it, open it, take a step out, step back in, close it, etc. - then work on stepping out and closing the door, waiting a second, coming back in, going out, waiting 5 seconds, coming back in - slow babysteps to teach her there's no need to panic.
You can find good behaviourists by looking on the APBC website, remember that there is no official qualification to become a dog behaviourist so the quality of the advice can vary from person to person, but APBC registered behaviourists do have a code of conduct as such to follow so it's a good start - http://www.apbc.org.uk
Unfortunately it can be a bit of an expense but a decent behaviourist will offer phone and email support and often do a checkup visit included in the price. Was Bonnie insured? I've heard of some insurers transferring policies in the event of policy holders passing away so that could be an option.
The Patricia McConnell book recommended does contain good info but is quite short. You can find most of the information for free online, though it does put all the good bits in one easy-to-understand booklet. I've found Nicole Wilde's book "Don't leave me!" a lot more comprehensive and it goes into good detail about plans and training logs.

Some things that I've personally found helped:
- teaching a "settle" on her bed and making the bed a calm zone. No initiating rough games, no worrying activities like trimming her nails or anything, she's either left to sleep, giving something nice like a tasty chew, or we can interact in the form of relaxing stroking/massaging. I noticed she was much more likely to go and settle on her bed when left after I did this settle training.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ0Rii_5ckE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM0LeSBjxA

- making every room exit a positive one. Even if it was just nipping up to the loo, Kiki was initially distressed by this so I stocked up on cream cheese to smear inside a Kong, or scattered some tasty treats (I made a bunch of healthy treats by baking liver or heart in small pieces - MSE as it's cheap to make and you can freeze the excess to have a giant stash, you will need a lot for this sort of training!) to put down every time we left the room. This really helped her anxiety about us leaving her in a different room.

- increased exercise. Unfortunately Kiki can't go off-lead much due to her high prey drive and as chasing is quite an adrenaline-inducing activity for dogs, I didn't want to encourage it anyway (or too much fetch with a ball, for the same reason). I took up the C25K running plan to get fit myself, and took Kiki along. It seems to help wear her out physically and mentally, she needs to concentrate on me as I'm stopping and starting as the podcast tells me to, and the constant running (well, on and off but for 30 minutes) seems to wear her out more than 5 minutes of sprinting around. Also providing mental stimulation - walking her around on a longline in the field and letting her sniff in the longgrass, using their nose can wear a dog out mentally.

- I encourage this nosework around at home too by scattering food in the garden. You might want to consider ditching the food bowl for a while and using her meals to your advantage, there's no rule to say a dog must have their meals from a bowl and all in one go. E.g. she could have half her breakfast scattered around the garden while you're getting ready for work, you could have prepared the other half the night before in a Kong and frozen it (I raw-feed so it's mince that I freeze into a Kong but wet dog food would work too - if she's not used to a Kong then introduce her with one a bit easier and work up towards freezing it). Then half her dinner could be earnt by doing some trick training (get on Youtube and look up "Kikopup"), and the other half could be doing the leave-alone training as per your behaviourist's plan/outlined in Nicole Wilde's book. I found that Kiki was initially too anxious to eat when left but I kept leaving frozen Kongs down and once her anxious behaviour toned down a little, I found that Kongs keep her occupied for a while and stop her getting wound up by the whole leaving routine.


Articles, books, behaviourists etc. will all tell you to do your best not to leave her alone as you'll undo your work, but real life isn't necessarily that practical. I impliment as much management as I can, e.g. family will dogsit occasionally but I do have to leave her when I go to work. I managed to work from home for a bit initially which helped get a bit of a jumpstart to dealing with it I think, so you could consider something like that? Another tip I had recommended me was to use a radio - not to calm her down or trick her into thinking people were home, but to differentiate between times when you have to leave her (e.g. to go to work) or times when you're training. You put the radio on for the essential leaving, and leave it off when you're training her, and it prevents you undoing your work in your training sessions.
Also, though I only like to use it for last resorts, I've found that leaving her at my nan's house can be better than leaving her home alone. My nan lives opposite so it's convenient but I don't want to push my luck and leave her too long and give her bad associations with it. But I shut her in the kitchen with a few Kongs, put the TV on so she thinks someone is home with her, and sneak out of the front door. I've recorded her when doing it and she doesn't seem to realise no one's there, unlike in our house (I guess she's learnt our routine and twigged on to the sounds of our cars going)
On that note, if you can record Bonnie then it may help you to deal with the behaviour, you might notice some things you can change to help. E.g. I noticed that Kiki would obsess over watching the window and not relax, so we moved furniture around to stop it. She paces between the rooms and I found that moving one of the dog beds into the pathway she used broke this habit as she doesn't like walking over it (it's a very puffy bed). Gives me little clues on stuff like that, as well as potential triggers of her barking (e.g. if it's the recycling men outside that have made her bark rather than her anxiety). I found "Debut Video Capture" free on the Filehippo website and you can record from a webcam, with audio if you have a microphone, for indefinate lengths of time.

We're getting there, it's a case of one step forward and two steps back at times but I can look back and see us making progress. I wouldn't blame you for wanting to give up, especially as it's not your own dog, but it might give you some light at the end of the tunnel to know that is is treatable.
If you do feel it's too much, then perhaps join up to some dog forums to find some other rescues to try. Dogpages and Dogsey are two I would recommend. As someone else has mentioned, a rescue that uses a foster home type setup could be a way to work around the separation anxiety, though it can be difficult to find rescue places for "normal" dogs nowadays, letalone elderly dogs with issues. It's not impossible though.

Oliver14

Find a decent Behaviourist (it doesn't sound like the one you saw was) or Trainer for one on one sessions. There are many good ones out there who specialise in this sort of thing. Or find a no kill rescue who specialise in the more difficult dogs. there are many out there. IMO killing a healthy dog is not an option when there are many other options out there

Padstow

Poor Bonnie, and poor you OP. Well done for taking her on in the first place, others may have taken her straight to the Vet.

To rehome her would IMO be the wrong thing as she would only be taking her anxiety with her and her new owner may not be as kind as you are to her. Something that stopped me from rehoming my then difficult rescue dog. I couldn't bear the thought of him being shouted at or worse.
He too had separation anxiety where he'd howl and scream until I returned. He's over it now as he knows I will be back so it does get better with time.

Others here may know whether a DAP diffuser may help, or even a crate covered with a blanket to make her feel secure like a little den, members here use them so I'm sure they will know better than I. Maybe try an upturned box with her blanket in.

Personally, I feel rehoming would be worse than PTS as her separation distress would start from the beginning again.

We wouldn't expect a human to be over the loss of a loved one in 7 months, and dad was Bonnie's soulmate.

Have you spoken to the Border Collie Rescue, not to have her rehomed but to get their advice on how to calm her? There is also the Border Collie forums.
Good luck with her, keep posting as I love a happy ending.

chunkychocky

I really feel for you op. We looked after my in-laws border collie for a fortnight many years ago. She was an exceptionally well behaved dog until we had her. We both worked so I got up at 5am every day to take her for a 2 hour walk, then DH would let her play in the garden until he left at 8.45. Then I'd race home to her at 12 to take her for a half hour walk. Then I'd race home again at 4.30 to take her on another 1.5-2 hour walk. It was horrid. Truly horrid. She chewed the door frame in the lounge. Did her business all over the carpet. Was generally very destructive. We built her a stair gate thing so that we could keep her in the kitchen because of the toileting on the carpet and she chewed that and the wall so much that she badly cut her mouth, and still kept on chewing despite the bleeding. There was no way that we could have spent any more time with her. She knew us well. She had originally been DH's dog when he was a teenager so it was him who had originally trained her, and she was used to being on her own for a few hours at a time (the in-laws both worked) yet she still couldn't cope with being on her own in our house.

I hope that some of the suggestions work a miracle, but I know that nobody else would think badly of you if you do have to make the toughest decision. If I hadn't known it was only for a fortnight I couldn't have coped with looking after her.

Good luck.

nonnatus

My Goodness, Kylr is amazing, and the advice she gives is both comprehensive and brilliant (as always!). It's certainly worth a try, however I'll chuck in my thoughts as well.

Bonnie is extrememly intelligent (as per her breed) and quite old. She has been very emotionally damaged by your Dad dying and no amount of re-training is going to erase him from her mind.

I know of a very similar story about a Jack Russell losing his owner when he was 8 years old. He just became more and more distressed and destructive, the more people tried to help him. He was put to sleep after much soul-searching (mainly about whether the re-training was in the best interests of the very resistant dog or for the benefit of the humans around him) and I continue to believe it was the right decision.

I wish you luck with YOUR decision x

lostinrates

Oliver14 wrote: »

Find a decent Behaviourist (it doesn't sound like the one you saw was) or Trainer for one on one sessions. There are many good ones out there who specialise in this sort of thing. Or find a no kill rescue who specialise in the more difficult dogs. there are many out there. IMO killing a healthy dog is not an option when there are many other options out there

Imo a no kill reacue might be the worst possible option for this dog who is in great need of time and individual care.....forexample, what would happen to her at night times?

I have to say, i too would be strongly consdidering pts over such an option for this girl (though like op, i would be trying to find another route and keeping her)

HeatherintheHills

Poor you OP and poor Bonnie, what an awful situation.

If you haven't given them a go yet I'd recommend trying a DAP diffuser in the rooms she uses and also Zylkene, which I have found to be invaluable. There are some immediate benefits with them sometimes but if they are used long term they allow the animal to slowly forget the source of the stress.

I had a cat that hid under a bed and refused to come out for over 6 months, except to use the litter tray (which was right next to the bed). She was on Zylkene for 2 continuous years before she forgot to be frightened of her own shadow. I still put her on it if there is to be any disruption to our normal routines. It tastes good so sprinkling it on food is both a treatment and stimulates appetite.

You are facing such a difficult decision, my thoughts are with you.