I have a 1 year old shih tzu-poodle and we’re having a hard time with her. She is house trained/potty trained fine, sometimes she doesn’t hit the pad though but it is fine. I’ve also taught her tricks before and she did well knowing a lot of them though she still forgot them easily. Then more recently something happened where she got startled and jumped down and ran full force into the wall and was disoriented after hitting her head on the wall pretty hard. Though soon after she seemed fine. (For added context, when she was a little puppy I accidentally dropped her from a height of about three feet). Ever since the wall incident she really doesn’t remember commands or tricks and if she performs them it’s just to get the treat and then forgets them immediately after. Some other concerning habits she has are the following: she has very intense shifts in behavior even when the environment or people have just been the same in a room, she would be suddenly very aggressive and irritated, then very sleepy and affectionate, then seemingly very sad for example. She doesn’t know when to stop doing something even after a long time even if it would cause her own discomfort. She sometimes suddenly drops things while she’s walking. She has a tendency to timidly yet aggressively mess with or almost pretend to “fight with” some still object on the floor for a long period of time. And another unusual thing is that she was just spayed so she should be sleepy and restful I assume, but she is only sleepy after the medication for about 30 minutes and then all of the other time she is usually extremely hyper and barking non stop. However, most of these behaviors she exhibited before the recent head trauma/for as long as I’ve had her. I really can’t afford to take her to any sort of specialist other than a regular vet. Does anyone have any advice or recommendations for how to manage this? Or any opinions on what might be the problem? I’ve wondered if she could possibly have “dog autism” and I see that head trauma could also be a possible cause. I have already always been very consistent with her in routine and balancing her all of her needs and wants – as I saw that is important when managing this.
submitted by /u/briellemabellee
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