Hi there, would sincerely appreciate anyone’s help and advice. Please read everything before commenting, the situation is a bit complex.
I have been to our vet multiple times, and each time prescribed a different sort of calming method, e.g. l-theanine pills, cbd treats, pheromones spray, etc. tried it all.
My dog is a rescue mixed breed, he looks like he could be a mix with a collie or mini aussie. I adopted him about 4 years ago, and he was estimated to be about 10-12 months old.
Let me preface that I love my dog very much. I’m going to list some bad qualities of his but he is not always this bad.
He has always been a difficult dog from the beginning, he’s quite quirky and reactive. I honestly would describe him as to having a sort of dog autism, very sensitive to food and textures, very sensitive to sound, has obsessive behaviors, strange reactions when overstimulated (barking very loudly while chasing his tail, multiple times per day when he hears normal noises in the house), etc. He’s a bit quirky, but quite lovable in his good moments.
Another thing to preface is that he doesn’t seem to respond to normal training methods very well. He learns commands quite easily, but doesn’t respond at all to any negativity. I’ve tried using only positive reinforcement for certain bad behaviors (him biting my clothes when I put them on, to initiate play, for example), and i’ve tried negative reinforcement (scolding, putting him in another room, even those high pitch sound makers when I was really desperate in the past) but he does not respond at all. Just doesn’t care. He has never shown an ounce of guilt or shame.
When I first adopted him, I was adamant about him sleeping in his crate at night as I had a small bed. At the beginning, he didn’t like it, but he slowly got used to his crate. It was in my bedroom so we were still close.
Then, we moved abroad (for personal reasons) to Italy. In our new apartment, I moved his crate to the living room as there wasn’t space in the bedroom. He was fine with that transition for two years. Then, we moved apartments again. In the new apartment, same thing, he slept in his crate in the living room. No problems for about 3 months.
Then all of a sudden, he started crying in his crate at night. When he cries, he really screams and is extremely loud. I didn’t understand what caused this, and some nights I would have to cave and let him sleep in our bed. The problem is, he is not a nice dog to sleep with. He growls every time we move in bed, he barks at noises outside, and he wakes us up early. It’s a nightmare honestly.
For probably 2 months we dealt with this, moving the crate into the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, anywhere. I’d put on music, a podcast, or white noise for him to drown out noises. I’d give him herbal anxiety meds from the vet. Spray pheromones in his crate. Put a worn t-shirt in his crate. Gave him chews and lick mats in his crate. All with a 50% success rate.
Eventually we decided he did better outside of his crate, and we kept him in the living room with the door closed. This seemed to work well, he didn’t feel constrained anymore, and could sleep on the couch or his bed freely. This has worked for about the past 7 months.
This week, all of a sudden, he can’t take it anymore. He cries when we put him in the living room for bed like 70% of the time. I always play him white noise and give him a lick mat, but now that doesn’t work. Some nights it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I try to keep track of what’s different, how long we spent outside, if we played a lot or not, to gauge if it’s because he has too much pent up energy. No patterns have emerged.
So now I’m at my wits end, coming to Reddit. Please, any advice welcome. TIA for reading to the end.