§ For now he stays…
Well, I guess we can’t give away a dog with issues. Nobody wants him. Everybody thinks he’s cute but he’s still here.
I guess that’s OK, it would be strange here without him. So, now that its apparent that he’s here to stay, we’ve opted to start on with a behaviorist.
The wife took him to a new vet on Friday. Though bear did freak out during the visit the vet concluded that it was still a good visit. She got Bear to warm up to her and Bear even let her examine his belly.
To put a long story short – he has fear based anxiety. So she’s prescribed him some drugs that are supposed to keep him calm and help with the behavioral training which starts next week. Fotunately we should only have to use the drugs while we’re working on his behavior. I hope we don’t have to keep him on it as I’m not a big fan of long term drug use for anyone, dog or human.
As I write this Bear is curled up on the ottoman staring off into space. I asked him if he was ready to go to bed, a question that is normally answered by him trotting off to the bedroom but tonight he just looked at me with a rather plain expression. At this hour he’s normally either asleep or deeply involved in the destruciton of a stuffed toy. The vet said this would happen at first but it is still odd to see.
I guess deep down I’m relieved that we still have him. I think I was having doubts that we didn’t give him the benefit of further exploration of his condition before separating him from his brother. He’s exhibited some good signs that lead us to beleive that he very well could make a turnaround in behavior. Discussion with people from the neighborhood who walk their dogs by regularly reveal that they are not nasty to them during the day while we are gone, but that they do see some aggressive behavior when we are home.
Hm, just now I heard Bear kick Dozer out of the bedroom. He’s afraid that Dozer will get Andy’s attention away from him.
So, there is good and bad and hopefully we can change that to be mostly good and rarely bad in the future.
Here’s hoping.
Tagged as: bear behavior dog
