Hi Everyone - i adopted a 7 year old lady called Odie during lockdown, i've had her about 2.5 months and she is so lovely. I live alone so this forum has been a great source of help to me recently as i've brought her home and started trying to work her out!
Until recently she slept downstairs, it was never a smooth process but was getting better. Slept on her bed at the bottom of the stairs, cried for a while when i went upstairs then barked a few times, but usually settled down. Wakes up at 6am on the dot every morning.
a few days ago she escaped, it was the worst night of my life. she came back with toenail ripped out and cuts all over her, and i've been cleaning them and looking after her since. This seems to have ramped up her clinginess to unmanageable levels.
It now takes two hours to settle her to sleep at night, she has been howling, barking and crying at the bottom of the stairs. I am trying to teach her to climb stairs but also she has a damaged foot (from escaping!) so it's currently a bit harder. I've brought her upstairs to be closer to me, she still barked at me and ran downstairs (no problem getting down the stairs!). when she was down, she barked again, so i brought her back up, where she started barking again. I'm sure she is trying to tell me something but i don't know what. (not toilet, as we go for walk just before bed). it went on like this for almost 2 hours and ended with me in tears and the dog clearly distressed, this has happened the last few nights and can't go on.
I am sure this is SA as she just hates being apart from me, so i thought sleeping next to my bed would have solved this, but it has not. Coupled with her super early wake up calls i'm finding this very hard and have been very upset about it, i'm exhausted and not sure what to do next. During dark moments recently i've considered maybe i've made a mistake, but i think it's mainly sleep deprivation making me have those thoughts. Does anyone have any advice?