My dog hates me

I will start by saying that Lucy is doing so much better. In fact, I think I may have discovered the source of her ailment. Stress.

This last weekend my husband, daughter and I had to fly out to the memorial service mentioned in the last post. Since Lucy was still needing round the clock care, I left her at my dad's house where she "grew-up" for 2 years. She loves my dad, and his old dog. There are no kids there and there is plenty of room for her to gallivant and even a pool for her to swim in.

Within 12 hours of leaving my dad texted me that my dog was a pig and eating and drinking like crazy and must be "snowballing me" since this was not a sick, dying dog that he was seeing.

She had a fantastic weekend of fun and I was thrilled that she was feeling better. I told myself perhaps she had a bug that she got over and would have been fine regardless of if she was at my dad's or at home with us.

When I pulled up with my dad to his house to get her, he went in first while I moved our bags from his car to our car. Lucy and Harley were both in full fledged "I love you human!" greeting mode. Body wiggling, tail wagging, even some doggie noises all for my dad. Then she saw me and walked over with about half as much excitement to greet me. Then she saw me take our 1 year old out of the car and everything changed. She looked up, and walked away. I didn't exist anymore.

A light history on Lucy and the baby is in order here. Lucy has never had a fondness for our daughter Elsie. Lex loved her from the day she came home and is still enamored with her. Lucy chose to ignore her for about 4 months until Elsie became more independent of our arms and Lucy was forced to acknowledge her presence on the floor. She had a hard time learning to not run over the baby when playing with toys (Lex was always aware of her, even in play). She started leaving the room and hiding if Elsie was crying especially hard. When Elsie became a mobile crawler at 11 months (late, yes), Lucy seemed to develop a huge distrust with her. Moving and grumbling when the baby would simply go by her. Talking to another trainer, I would move Lucy behind a gate when this happened and give her something to chew on for being a good girl and not biting the baby! I prefer warning signs, such as grumbling any day.

Lucy got over the crawling novelty but just seemed to sink into a depression. I chalked this up to her being an older dog and needing to sleep more. Elsie is a very respectful baby with the dogs. She doesn't pull on their ears or appendages. She doesn't take things from them or holler at them. We are raising her to be a very dog savvy kid.

The light bulb really went off for me when we brought Lucy back to our place this week. I started keeping mental notes of her stress signals, how many she displays each day and when/why they happen. I noticed an alarming pattern. Anytime my daughter was too excited or upset, Lucy would immediately begin panting heavily, pacing, then finally removing herself to another room for 20 minutes to hours before returning. If I gave Elsie any warnings such as "don't touch that," or "that's a no-no," Lucy would display a behavior called splitting, where she would split me and Elsie and give me appeasement signals to try to "calm" me down. These signals for her are usually trying to get in my lap, lick the corner of my lips, give a wide pant/smile. If I comforted her, she really never stopped. So I would have to comfort her a bit, then tell her to go lie-down or get a ball etc. She would comply, but was not pleased about leaving my side.

My second light bulb moment was Tuesday night. I went to my dad's place to pick up some food and took Lucy and Elsie with me. My dad came home shortly after and Elsie scrapped her chin and was crying. As I tended to her, Lucy went through the whole appeasement scenario with my dad. My dad was shocked. He said that she was so happy the weekend she was there and didn't show any signs of stress. He asked me if she did this a lot at my house, to which I replied, "Unfortunately, yes." It was then that he made the offer of Lucy living at his house.

I have been thinking about it a lot. I have shed some tears over it as well. I have always been furious with people posting on craigslist about re-homing their dog because they have a baby and it just isn't going to work out. How can someone just give up their dog? Dogs and babies can co-exist just fine! While this situation doesn't mirror that, I can't help feeling as if I will be giving up if I choose to let her retire at my dad's house.

Wednesday and today, I made a huge effort to be fun doggie mommy again. I took the dogs to a grassy field for fetch both days, played hide the stuffed kong toy yesterday a few times, took them to work with me yesterday and today they had frozen broth treats, got to play with my mom's dogs and do some short training sessions. The results: Lex is in heaven. Lucy is only happy during each event, and lapses back into her other behaviors in between. In fact, I felt as if she literally hated me when I had to pick her up and load her into the car at my mom's as she was about 10 feet from the car avoiding eye contact and refusing to load.

As much as it hurts me, she is obviously unhappy here living with a baby. With another baby on the way, I can't imagine what her stress level will elevate to!

My dad only lives 15 minutes away. I have a key to his house and am welcome there any time to visit or steal my dog for an outing. He really impressed upon me that she will always be MY dog.

I have made the decision. I am going to let her be happy and stress-free and retire there. She deserves it. Now the question is when. I keep procrastinating taking her over there because it feels like good-bye. It feels like I am copping out. I keep making up excuses and trying to invent more things to do with her to make her happy being here again. Then I realize that since Elsie came along, she hasn't been truly happy. At now it is where it is affecting her health.

At this point, I keep going around in circles in my head. I am not sure what our relationship will look like with her living elsewhere, but I keep trying to remind myself that she is clearly stressed here and I shouldn't be selfish. Part of being a good dog owner is taking care of her needs.