Max (5 years old) is a reactive/anxious dog who is scared of thunderstorms and fireworks; we always know how to deal with those episodes (and he does too), but a couple of months ago we moved into a small apartment near the airport — I quote it because we are not that close to it, but we hear the planes frequently — and this guy got scared AF, or at least I think he is because of his behavior. Let me explain:
Fireworks / Thunderstorms → Max goes to a safe space and hides.
Planes → Max doesn’t rest, lifts his ears, and cries.
In both situations, he doesn’t like to be pet and goes wild (once he bit me when I tried to pet him in that state of stress), but he likes to lick his lick mat. He stresses out for a while (half an hour or so), and then the restlessness comes back along with the crying.
And the biggest issue is that this happens at night. We are in a cycle: we go to sleep at 10 p.m., Max wakes up (and wakes us up) at 12, I get him his lick mat, we sleep for 2 hours, he wakes up at 2 a.m., more licking, wakes up again at 4 a.m., and so on until 6 a.m., when we finally start our day and go for a walk as if nothing happened.
The vet suggested pregabalin during the holidays, but only for a week. The very next day we stopped the meds, the cycle started again.
Has anyone faced the same situation? I love Max, and I’ll do whatever it takes to give him a life without this suffering, but I am really worried about him and my marriage. Being unable to sleep 8 hours a day is destroying us.
submitted by /u/gigi-stardust
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