Hello,
We have a usually very lovely but (as with many!) super anxious adoptee called Mich. He has had challenges settling in, including a rather intense fear of his reflection, bad separation anxiety, and reactivity to dogs. We've made some progress, and he has been on fluoxetine for maybe 7 weeks. It seems generally that when he is scared, it results in aggression and it escalates quickly.
I have seen lots of posts with people having challenges in these early months and getting tips as well as a bit of moral support and I guess I'm hoping for some of the same! This is a great forum. We have really fallen in love with him and don't want to let him down.
Mich has began reacting angrily to me. Not my partner at all. He is usually very affectionate. Seems to be mostly in the evenings although yesterday he did it when I came in from separation training in the morning. It's a mix of growling, leaping, barking, air snapping. Luckily no bites yet. Worryingly he doesn't always growl or bark first but leaps. For now I am spending my evenings upstairs away from him.
We can't suss out whether it's space aggression, sleep startle, resource guarding or what. It's happened in a range of circumstances - after he invited me to pet him and then decided no. Sometimes it's when I move - come into a room he's in, enter the house, or come downstairs. In those cases I have been approaching where he is although sometimes at quite a distance.
He is still hanging out with me, is excited to walk together, and coming to me for neck scritches sometimes. He's generally a nervous dude though, yawny and liplicky.
We are trying to find a behaviourist now to help as we are very keen to work on this. I guess my first question is - anyone encountered anything like this? Our adoption group just said we should return him.
My second question is - this is making me worried for if we ever had kids. Admittedly, I think this is at least 3 years away - possibly more. Have people's doggies relaxed during those first few years at all? I can live with being careful around him but this (seemingly) sudden switch flip to aggression is making me nervous.
Thanks for reading my short essay 😅😅 am feeling so down about this and would love any advice.