Scheduled appointment for BE and struggling with it
Where to start… our dog is about 13 years old. Pit mix. Always struggled with anxiety and is animal aggressive, but for a long time, we were able to manage it by keeping him away from other animals and avoiding his anxiety triggers (used to just be beeping noises). Keeping him away from other animals was the most difficult part. There have been times when I’ve been drug across concrete as he tried to attack another dog, and he’s accidentally bitten me when I got between him and another dog (immediately released me).
About two years ago, his anxiety got much worse. I think it coincided with beginning to lose his hearing as he is now mostly deaf. He began to shake at random times of the day for no discernible reason. He sometimes shakes so hard his teeth chatter. He also now seems to have severe separation anxiety and has torn up doors and other parts of the house and has left blood marks. We use a crate now.
He also barks and lunges at strangers who come in the house. I used to be able to talk to him to call him off, but now he can’t hear me.
All of this we could probably still manage if it were just my husband and me… but we now have a child, and a severely anxious dog and a child don’t mix.
We keep our toddler and dog separated at all times. Our dog mostly wants to stay away from her, but as she gets more mobile, I’m concerned about what might happen. He attacks our other dog every once in a while (no blood has ever been drawn and it’s usually very very brief - 99% of the time, they get along fine).
He’s recently started to get severely anxious when we move him from his preferred spot in the house (living room), which we do to keep our kid and dog separate. We’ve tried trazodone, fluoxetine, and gabapentin, and while they help, he still exhibits this anxious behavior. He usually just stands at the gate, trying to get in, while shaking.
This past weekend after he destroyed something in the house and had severe anxiety all weekend, we came to the decision that it was time for BE. He’s having more bad days than good days at this point, and there’s the potential he could harm our daughter.
It’s heartbreaking. I keep questioning myself… but he is mentally suffering and we can’t help him anymore. If I’m honest with myself, I am also mentally exhausted from the hyper vigilant state I am always in trying to keep him separate from our daughter and away from other dogs. Still, when he has good moments, i question myself again. My husband is in a much worse state of mind because this was his dog originally before we got together.
Has anyone else gone through this? Any thoughts?