Before Dominic entered the scene, Miley's moping and whining was so bad that I really thought I was going to lose it. There was no appeasing her. I couldn't put her in a crate, because she would just whine non-stop. Leaving her loose in the house created the beaten looking dog in the kitchen. Occasionally I could get her to settle on the couch, but that was usually only as long as I was on the couch with her. As soon as I got up, she was up.
Now that the ever exuberant Dominic is around, once Miley starts whining, he's there in a flash to pounce on her and shake her out of it. That lasts as long as they're playing, but once he wanders off to something else, it's back to depressed Miley.
She becomes incredibly motion and sound sensitive. Any creaking of anything in the house unnerves her. Motion of any sort, particularly on the periphery of her vision, has her wipping around with tail tucked. When we're training inside the house, the sound of the wind outside, even faint, can cause her to break her stay and come running up to me. Dominic adjusting his position on the dog bed while he holds a down stay and I work her, will cause the same tail tucked, melting reaction. the noise sensitivity isn't just in the house either. Its any where that we go. Hiking, to the pet store, just out on a walk. Trying to work her through it and somehow desensitize her hasn't seemed to work. I realize that its somehow hormone related, so that doesn't make it easier to get at the root of the problem. And then after the two months are up, these symptoms gradually fade.
Probably the most irritating and difficult to predict the onset of is the furniture chewing. It happens each time and I haven't been able to pin point the timing in the false pregnancy when it occurs. She has nibbled on the base boards in the crate room, my bedroom door frame, a small section of the office room door frame, a little bit on my bed frame, but most irritating is my dresser.
She hasn't damaged the structural integrity of it, yet. But as you can see, she's done some damage. I thought I had things under control by putting up a baby gate to my bedroom any time I wasn't home. That kept her from continuing to chew on my dresser. But she decided to move on to the couch.
I'm really not happy about that one. At this point, I have no idea what she might chew on, so she is now crated whenever I'm not home. I have no idea what kicks off the chewing. It seems to be anxiety related, maybe separation anxiety as she only does it when I'm not home. And a couple of the times (the dresser and the couch) she did that while Dominic was loose in the house with her too, so it couldn't have been for lack of companionship. She is definitely way more anxious when she's going through the false pregnancy than at any other time, so the separation anxiety theory makes sense. I just don't get it though!
Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to Miley's uterus and ovaries taking a one way trip out of this household so that I can get my normal Miley back.
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