petsitting friend's reactive dog, need to sleep in room with him and want advice!
hi everyone! Im currently sitting for my downstairs neighbor's reactive dog while they're out of town. He is (from my understanding) mostly a super scaredy cat - he barks like crazy at anyone within 50 feet of us on walks which sucks because we're in a city. He also has p bad separation anxiety.
yesterday was our first day together without his owner. he's definitely amped up because he's a big dog but mostly he barks when he gets excited and also if he hears any noise that's not from me or him. he also rolls over and lets me scratch his belly a lot, and I can get him to do tricks like roll over or high five with treats but he is v smart and I can't trick him into eating trazodone.
I have to sleep in the room with him or else he gets really anxious and barks all night and I've been very nervous - I grew up with big dogs and love them but I also know that they can decide they want to eat you in a second so it was hard for me to sleep last night, especially because the next door neighbors were loud and he got really scared and kept barking randomly whenever he heard something. he eventually just slept on the bed next to me chilling but I was still worried. does anyone have any suggestions for keeping him calm at night and keeping myself safe? should I play tv all night and keep the lights on? I'm also going to have to leave from 9-11 tonight and I'm worried if I come back late when it's dark he'll try to eat me.