Week Nine: Anti-depressant update

We arrived just before a small-dog class let out. We hung out in the back of my car with the tailgate down, while the class finished up and then left. She seemed nervous when we arrived, but she perked up when she heard Gigi’s voice.

Just like at the agility field, Lilly is more relaxed if there’s no one there (at all) from the time we arrive. It takes her a long time to recover, even if the dogs and people leave and we’re clearly alone.

She did grumble at little bit at a couple of the dogs as they walked to their mommy’s cars. Just under her breath. Just a grumpy noise.

So, I knew we were going to have a small-movement kind of day. I set my expectations LOW. All I wanted to try was the Go to Place Exercise. I wanted to see if our work at home would translate. My hope was that she would openly offer the behavior. But, as I mentioned earlier week, we only made as far as the parking lot, and she needed jackpots to get her out of the car/crate and onto the blanket.

Lilly wanted nothing to do with inside, even though the big doors were open while Gigi cleaned up at the end of the day, so I didn’t even try that.

In addition to there being dogs when we arrived, I think the other negative stimuli came from the wind. It was very windy and dry leaves where skirting across the pavement. Now, to us, that’s not a big deal … just the sounds of autumn, but I think to Lilly that noise is very disconcerting. All that scraping and movement, I believe, put her in overload.

After this long on the medication, I can honestly say that it’s discouraging to see her shut down (even if it’s not a total shutdown down as I described earlier this week).

Other Notes
Lilly still shows little interest in playing at times. Yesterday, she was a playing fool and fetched for like 20 minutes straight, but there are still other days when she seems like she wants to play, but then won’t.

Also, she’s being particularly snotty to Ginko. Even though he’s clearly top dog, he will heed her vocal warnings (and curled) lips when she throws he weight around. Last night, I had to hold Lilly in a bear hug so that Ginko felt it was OK to get on the bed. Otherwise, she growled and chased him off. I really hate the resource-guarding thing.

What’s interesting is that Lilly often immediately goes submissive, scoots up to Ginko, head down, ears down, one paw raised and will lick his face after she’s been mean to him. Ginko either plays the benevolent leader and looks away, or he takes the opportunity to stuff her entire head in his mouth or clamp down gently on her muzzle … like, yep, who’s the boss?

I talked to my veterinarian a bit yesterday. We had a phone date to talk about Ginko’s thyroid levels anyway, so I took the chance to update him on Lilly and the meds. We both agree that small changes, like not flipping out at the marauding dog a couple weeks ago, are good signs. We’re going to keep her at this dose (37.5 mg of

Since it’s the last weekend of the month, there’s no class this weekend. Plus, Gigi is at the APDT conference. So, I may take Lilly to town today or tomorrow and do some work in public. I’ll try to come up with some interesting experiment to report.