Well our crating saga continues...

Got home last night and Artemis had somehow gotten her hind leg IN the CARINBINER, just above the joint, near the tendon sheath. It didn't look bad last night but this morning, the joint was all swollen and bleeding slightly. We're treating her with antibiotics and PRAYING that it's just a skin injury and swollen from her struggling and that it's not an infection of in the tendon sheath. But we did see the other vet at the clinic and she agreed that we DEFINITELY need to medicate her while working through these anxiety issues (FINALLY!!!) She's also certified in acupuncture and recommended trying that in conjunction with the herbal medications. I just wanted to see if any of you had tried that route before and what your experience had been.

We used medicine with Phantom's extreme separation anxiety after we rescued her from the shelter. She was on 20 mg of fluoxetine (prozac) and it COMBINED with desensitization training worked very well. Just be aware, medication without the training won't work. We've never tried acupuncture but before medicating her went through all the herbal remedies we could buy, but it didn't help for her.

Good luck! And I recommend the book, I'll Be Home Soon by Patricia McConnell. It's only like 40 pages and clearly lays out desensitization training for separation anxiety.

It's good to see you posting, Karen!

Poor baby!!!

We haven't tried medicine for anxiety, but try getting the thundershirt. It's slightly pricey, but It's well worth it. It really does help! It may not solve it completely, but I have used it, as well as several of my fellow rescue workers and they work so well! I can't say enough about them!

Yup - the thundershirt along with more slow desensitization training helped so much with Frosti's separation anxiety and crate training. I mentioned this before on another crate training thread, but the anxiety actually feeds the anxiety and makes it worse. The thundershirt may take a few tries to work, and put it on at least a half hour before your training starts - and also put it on at other times so she doesn't associate it with the crate. Good luck!

I just saw on "it's me or the dog" that their is a Cd you can buy that helps soothe dogs with SA. I don't know if it works but it would be worth the couple bucks to try.

Thundershirt doesn't really seem to have any affect other than giving her something else to chew on. We're working the issues slowly but surely... just never thought she'd get a CARIBINER INJURY. Guess we'll be zip tying her in.

OK, I started a thread in the Medical forum to chronicle our acupuncture/herbal experience. Wish us luck!

Jenny is absolutely right: medication without training is a dead end.

I know a few dogs that were successful with it and Jenn, one of our moderators, did acupuncture with Jack for an injury. I've only heard success stories with the practice on people and animals, so I have nothing but positive things to say

Yep, we did acupuncture with jack, do a search for it, sure its under the medical section. Sorry on my phone so I can't add the link. It was for a hind leg issue, it worked, by the next day he was better!

Good luck and keep us posted.

I tried all of the herbal stuff you can get at Petsmart and that didn't help any. The vet we're sing was trained in Chi medicine at some place in Gainesville, FL. She has ordered Zhen Xin San and I've tried looking it up online but haven't really found out much about it other than it's for "hot" dogs and treats "fire in the heart and phlegm" or something. From what I can gather, phlegm isn't phlegm like we think of with a cough. LOL