- Location
- Sydney, Australia
Arrive home from work last night and within 5 minutes wanted to turn around and go back. Maxx's doorway phobias are getting worse and he spends all day looking to commit crimes. If he can't find something on a surface to nick and chew up, he destroys a plant or something else. OH does not deal with stress very well, it runs in his family (his brother and sister both have anxiety issues) so it is not a happy home right now. OH is playing games with him and taking him for 2 walks and is really doing his best to cope and doing a very good job with just the odd spike of frustration.
Maxx also won't go onto his bed now; we are pretty sure he jumped on it about 10 days back and it moved underneath him and scared him. We heard a loud noise on the back porch that sounded like that and from that moment on the phobias started. We are ignoring them as best as possible, as per your fantastic advice, but bedtime now is a nightmare. He wants to stay on the big rug in the lounge but we are too scared he will chew up the leather sofa so we are taking him down to our room and he is sleeping quite nicely on his blanket next to our bed. Getting him down the stairs, however, is a VERY long winded process as he gets to the landing near the bottom and stops dead and cries. And between the two boys there is a lot of snoring so I am not sleeping very well
. And normally he doesn't wake up until around 6.30 on weekends and my WFH days but in Mum and Dad's room it is 5.00am pretty much on the dot. From then it's jump on them, lick their elbow, chew the blind cord until we get up and start the day early. It's only 30 minutes earlier than normal for a work-day in the City so not too bad, but I am WFH tomorrow hopefully and I really need a sleep-in!
He is going to the kennel on Thursday for 10 days. So we are hoping that in that time he will forget whatever it is he is afraid of and come back much more normal. Or of course it leaving him might make it worse. We are hopeful because he is obsessed with playing with other dogs and he is going to pretty much have 10 days full time doing that.
We are ditching the trampoline bed and OH is getting another one delivered tomorrow that will be more like the beds that you guys have - a cushion-y thing on the floor rather than something raised up that has the potential of moving. So perhaps tomorrow night we can leave him upstairs in the big pen on his nice new bed.
We head off on our holiday on Friday and it can't come soon enough.
Maxx also won't go onto his bed now; we are pretty sure he jumped on it about 10 days back and it moved underneath him and scared him. We heard a loud noise on the back porch that sounded like that and from that moment on the phobias started. We are ignoring them as best as possible, as per your fantastic advice, but bedtime now is a nightmare. He wants to stay on the big rug in the lounge but we are too scared he will chew up the leather sofa so we are taking him down to our room and he is sleeping quite nicely on his blanket next to our bed. Getting him down the stairs, however, is a VERY long winded process as he gets to the landing near the bottom and stops dead and cries. And between the two boys there is a lot of snoring so I am not sleeping very well
. And normally he doesn't wake up until around 6.30 on weekends and my WFH days but in Mum and Dad's room it is 5.00am pretty much on the dot. From then it's jump on them, lick their elbow, chew the blind cord until we get up and start the day early. It's only 30 minutes earlier than normal for a work-day in the City so not too bad, but I am WFH tomorrow hopefully and I really need a sleep-in! He is going to the kennel on Thursday for 10 days. So we are hoping that in that time he will forget whatever it is he is afraid of and come back much more normal. Or of course it leaving him might make it worse. We are hopeful because he is obsessed with playing with other dogs and he is going to pretty much have 10 days full time doing that.
We are ditching the trampoline bed and OH is getting another one delivered tomorrow that will be more like the beds that you guys have - a cushion-y thing on the floor rather than something raised up that has the potential of moving. So perhaps tomorrow night we can leave him upstairs in the big pen on his nice new bed.
We head off on our holiday on Friday and it can't come soon enough.
but I can tell you it has been a VERY long day. I ended up coming home from work at lunch time as some stuff that we were supposed to do today got moved to tomorrow so I can't WFH 
