Doggy Psych Hosp

I took little dog into the vets today for his bordetella shot - except its not a shot anymore, its a fluid they shot up his nose.

He did not care for this.

After they were finished with him, I  stood around and kibbized with the vet techs. I  told them about Rockets increased  anxiety and destructive behaviors and sleep disturbances and they agreed to add these to his chart and to bring these changes to the doctors attention.

They also suggested again that I take him to a behaviorist - a real behaviorist. I did have a  vet tech/"behaviorist" come in several months ago and he did have some good ideas and I put a few interventions into practice - to varying degrees of success- along with the drug therapy that his vet started and along with doggy school and visits to daycare, he seemed to even out a little - But. I think Rockets body chemistry has changed as he left his puppy years behind him and started to enter dog adulthood. I need better ideas and maybe better drugs.

The vet tech at my veterinarians suggest the NC State Vet School and their behaviorist. They did this months ago but I didn't think he was sick enough for the vet school and I decided to handle it myself. Also the vet school is expensive as hell.

She said they have sent many, many clients there over the years and they all come back  uniformly singing the praises of the program and berating themselves for not going sooner. I cruised around the site and learned a lot. Mostly that my dog isn't as crazy as other peoples dogs. My dog isn't a raging , violent, aggressive monster, my dog  is merely emotionally disturbed!  He's neurotic, not deranged.

I read through the questionnaire that new clients fill out prior to their first visit. I was reading through it and while some of the behaviors were familiar, a lot of them were not and it made me worry that maybe as disturbed as he is, maybe he isn't disturbed enough.

I'm hoping that they can still help him out, perhaps at an adjusted rate, even if his problems aren't as interesting and clearly he isn't a candidate for a padded kennel like some of their other clients. Yet.