letter #12
we're all making our own sense of things
So the dog's on anti-anxiety medication.
Look, I agree it sounds ridiculous, and I absolutely would be joining with you in mocking me if I were not me. But these last few months I've had another big lesson in not judging what you don't understand and I'm telling you, Dog Anxiety, it's a thing.
I've found the process of putting him on medication strangely emotional. I would not equate this experience with any of my mothering experiences, but there are certainly parts which have been resonant. I cried with the relief of being understood as the vet stood, calmly asking question after question, nodding, prompting for deeper answers, nodding again. And then there's the waking up at two in the morning, the dog on my mind, trawling the internet into the dawn. Beginning with simple keyword searches (prozac dogs) building towards increasingly specific questions (will my lagotto respond well to prozac and, if so, what kind of timeframe would be reasonable) as if google were some kind of oracle. Trawling through the newly-joined facebook groups looking for the exact same person with the exact same dog having the exact same issues as I've been having.
I want to blame everyone else who lives here, but I was the one who introduced dogs to our family. Back when I was struggling with all of the things across all of the generations of my family--cancer, dementia, infertility--I know! I'll get a puppy. And not just a puppy! A beagle! Everyone who knew me and knew dogs cautioned me against it, but I thought it would solve all my problems. Of course getting a puppy didn't solve any of the problems I had, and what's more it created mor of its own. But ever since then we've been a family with a dog.
Looking back at it now, I'm fairly certain that beagle had far more serious issues than our current pooch. But the thing is, I'm not really a dog person, and I don't love having a dog. I love our dog--and I really, really loved our dog who died last year--but I wouldn't have a dog left to my own devices. I'm scared of many dogs. I don't especially like patting them. Honestly, it's hard to be in love with a being that likes eating cat poo.
So I guess that's why I didn't recognise the issues with our beagle and I guess that's why, in this current situation, I accepted the barking, the pacing, the barking, the pacing because I expected to find having a puppy difficult. But time passed. Our efforts to train him became ever-more frustrating (and we have worked very, very hard at the training). I grew more and more resentful about the time I was spending dog-wrangling instead of working (I work from home a lot of the time and it's even more difficult working with a dog who is barking, pacing, barking, pacing than it is to work with a toddler).
I rang the dog behaviourist again. She's a slightly intimidating woman, in the way that people who know their stuff and don't know how other people don't know their stuff can be. But I like her. She reminds me of Jane Lynch. And it isn't just that she loves dogs, it's that she demonstrates a compassion for them which has helped me to understand the difference between having a dog as a pet and having one as a companion.
I can come again, she said in a tone that made me feel like I'd asked the wrong question, but first I want you to take the report I wrote you and go to the vet. You need to consider medication.
The vet, who specialises in dog anxiety and who has met our dog a few times agreed with the trainer.
And now the dog's on prozac.
I would say we've had infinitely more success with the training this week. And the dog seems much happier. Or maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. That's possible. But he's pacing less and he's barking less and he's resting more peacefully when he's resting.
That's not the end of the story. Side effects. Finding the right dosage. And there is still a lot of training to be done. The behaviour expert will be back soon to teach us how to teach the dog what it needs to learn.
From here, I had written another few hundred words, but I've deleted them and I'll put them in the next letter. I was starting to go to places I didn't quite understand, and the connection to the dog's prozac was growing nebulous.
I started watching the next series of Stranger Things, but I'm going to say I didn't love it. I'll write more about that next time too.
Whatever is going on in your world right now, I send you my love.
Talk soon,
Tracy xx