Keeping with the theme of last week's blog that talked about how shaming people for rehoming pets sucks and should be stopped, I thought I would share an update on how Zero is doing. If you do not already know, I made the decision to have Zero move out of my home almost a year ago. I wrote about it at the time, so you can go back to read that if you are not already in the loop.
Zero Last Year
Before I made the call to have Zero live elsewhere, he was radiating anxiety. He was terrified of the sound of barking, other dogs made him nervous, he had rubbed the tip of his nose raw, he was so sound sensitive to any noise in the house, and night terrors would wake him up in the middle of the night. I tried to fix things so he could feel okay in my home, and I struggled along with him while trying to figure out how to help him.
Firstly, I put him on fluoxetine (we are fluoxetine buds!) to take the edge off. There is a stigma surrounding psychiatric medication for both humans and dogs, and I could go off on a tangent about that. I won't because that is not what this post is about, but I will say that medications are sometimes necessary in order to make progress with training. If you have a dog whose stress level is so high that they are unable to learn, there is no amount of training that will break through that emotional state.
I also tried to implement management within the household where Zero would spend most of his time in my bedroom with me and would just go out into the rest of the house on his way to the backyard. However, there are many factors in a multi-dog household that can cause management to fail or make it unrealistic to maintain on an ongoing basis. It did not work in our house.
I never got to the training portion because the management portion did not work out. If you remember from my post about management, you need to manage your environment in between training sessions in order for your training to be effective. There was a period during Zero's adolescence where he and Troy were both on edge living with each other. I was able to work through it along with the use of management, but I would not have been able to do the training without the management. (How many times did I say "management" in this paragraph?)
Zero went on a week-long vacation at my mom's house at one point to see if a break from the environment that was stressing him out would help him. My mom reported that he slept like crazy, so I feel like he was probably always on high-alert at my house and, as a result, was not resting enough. He also spent some time with my ex-boyfriend for what was supposed to be a longer vacation. When he would come back to my house for visits, it was obvious that he was not okay. Since my ex could not look after him long term, I talked to my mom about taking him.
Zero Now
I am incredibly fortunate to be able to keep updated on Zero and see him regularly, so I have been able to watch him thrive in a different environment. My mom has done an amazing job taking care of him, and he has come so far with building his confidence back up. He is happy to see me when I go to visit, but he avoids me when I am getting ready to leave. I obviously can't read his mind, but I feel like that means he wants to stay with my mom instead of coming back to my house.
Very soon after going to my mom's, his night terrors stopped. He barks at the sound of knocking or a doorbell, but his sound-sensitivity has otherwise disappeared. His rubbed nose is completely healed. He has even made some new doggie friends. My mom has said that she thinks his fluoxetine could probably be reduced and maybe eventually stopped, but he will be staying on it for a bit. I am going to be moving this year, and I want to see how he does at the new place, so he is going to stay on the fluoxetine at least until that transition is over to help it go more smoothly. Since it is a medication with a bit of an adjustment period, I figured this would let him avoid having to go through that twice.
I also knew that my stress level had increased while going through this, but I did not realize just how much until after Zero was settled in a different environment. Leading up to Zero leaving, most of my therapy sessions were focused on how hopeless and out of control I felt about Zero's situation. I felt like I was doing everything wrong but, at the same time, I couldn't think of what I could do instead that would be right. My therapist helped me to see that I was not in a place where I could be at my best to help Zero, and she helped me realize that it was okay to ask for help.
Whether it was Zero's stress level or my stress about Zero's stress that caused Troy and Spice to also feel more stressed, I'm not sure. It was probably a combination of both. Regardless, they started to seem more relaxed after Zero left. Not only did Zero thrive after going to stay with my ex and then my mom, but his departure made room for his doggo siblings to feel more secure as well.
Zero is the most affectionate and loving little dog, and he deserves all of the best things that the world has to offer. He is getting that now.
Reflecting
Looking back at all of this, I wish that I had made the call to have Zero move in with my mom sooner. I went back and forth on the decision for a long time because I felt like I would be failing him if he was not with me. I felt like I had a responsibility to keep him with me at all costs because I had made that commitment when I got him. In the end, that thinking kept him in a situation that was causing distress to him and the rest of our household. While I miss him like crazy and still get teary about him not being here sometimes, I know that I made the right call.
I do believe that you should not take the decision to add a pet to the family lightly, but I think that message has gone a bit too far to the point where it sometimes causes harm instead of preventing it. I shared some alternative messages regarding responsible pet ownership in last week's post, so I won't repeat them here. What I will repeat is that sometimes rehoming is the right choice. Many people do everything right when adopting or purchasing a pet, but then life throws unexpected curveballs at them. The message that you are a horrible person if you re-home a pet kicks people when they are down, and is that really what you want to project into the world?
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