Behaviourist and psychotropic drugs

 So here we were..... Gail had settled in, but every walk was for her full of anxiety. I started walking her early in the morning and late at night, to avoid meeting people. 

I sat in the car in a car park with her and fed her treats when people passed by in the distance... It all showed very little improvement.

Then one day I read a post on Facebood from a dog trainer, describing her journey with her rescue dog from Romania and how the dog got worse when her older dog died and how full of  anxiety he was. She then went down the route to ask her vet for drugs to relief the anxiety. She then described how it changed her dog's behaviour and how it was now possible to work with him. 

Unfortunately there seem to be quite a taboo on taking drugs for anxiety. In people but more so in dogs. We have the idea, that we can "fix" a dog with training. Conditioning, counter conditioning... etc. The problem is, if your dog is so fearful that he cannot learn, you will not be successful with training. 

So I went and looked for a vet and a behaviourist to get support.  It is really hard to deal with these situations on your own. No matter if it is anxiety in dogs or any other problem. You always think you are on your own and there is nobody who can help. This feeling of loneliness and helplessness and sometimes despair really drags you down. So if you can, get yourself help!