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[Remolacha]

Terrific update!

[galgrey]

Wonderful news! I had never heard of Zylkene. Good info to have.

[Guest DeniseL]

Promising update! I, too, have never heard of zylkene....just my two cents with an anxious, fear agressive hound: Prozac, 30 mg once a day and he is loving life. We also worked with a behaviorist. The spring and summer are harder because there is more going on outside and he can feel the energy coming out of the phillies stadium during games ( we live very close to it) really freaks him out, and I have a hard time walking him at night. We always take a few steps back....sometimes he won't leave the house...it takes a lot of patience...

[Guest AimeeBee]

I asked about Zhivaya's train phobia when he first came home, and got a lot of responses that "it's just because they don't have trains at greyhound race tracks". In the Midwest, there are a lot of train lines. Later on, I read someone who was a trainer/owner and worked for years at greyhound race tracks talking about some of the old stories and said there was one greyhound race track where a train line ran exactly adjacent to one of the kennels where the greyhounds were kept, and they almost always blew the train horn just at that location (he said they did it out of spite), He said that most of the dogs would freak out. If Zhivaya had been in a situation like that (I don't know which track it was and I don't know if he was there or not), in his crate, with his disposition, that would have been sheer torture for him. If something like that went on, day after day, then it could explain (at least partially) why he is so psychotic today

 

I'm not an expert (nor do I play one on tv) and I'm not familiar with the story you heard but I used to work in the transportation industry. There is a large rail yard about a half mile from the track in Council Bluffs IA, plus all the supporting trucking/warehousing that goes along with that kind of operation. I can imagine the dogs getting pretty riled up at the noise.

 

It's great that Zhivaya seems to be making progress with the new meds! He looks like a sweet boy that deserves all the long walks he wants

Edited April 19, 2014 by AimeeBee

[scullysmum]

So glad to hear that he's improving.

[Guest grey_dreams]

 

I'm not an expert (nor do I play one on tv) and I'm not familiar with the story you heard but I used to work in the transportation industry. There is a large rail yard about a half mile from the track in Council Bluffs IA, plus all the supporting trucking/warehousing that goes along with that kind of operation. I can imagine the dogs getting pretty riled up at the noise.

 

It's great that Zhivaya seems to be making progress with the new meds! He looks like a sweet boy that deserves all the long walks he wants

 

 

Wow, thank you. He was at Council Bluffs. He is particularly phobic of trains and big heavy trucks. We've managed to mostly work through the truck phobia, but the train phobia is rock-solid. Marta gave me some techniques to do, and reminded me of others that I wasn't using, so we will get there, slowly, and it's going to take a long time. I want to move away from where I live now, but we have to stay here for another year or so, The first thing I will be doing before looking at houses is checking google maps and plotting the distance to the nearest train track.

 

The very first time he heard a train here was the first day he came home. He freaked out so bad It was really clear that this wasn't a reaction to something that he had never encountered before, but a reaction to something that he had encountered many times and filled him with absolute terror. By the way, he isn't afraid of thunderstorms, even when we had a near-miss tornado he wasn't afraid, and he isn't afraid of fireworks. Trains, screaming children, and skateboards top the list. It helps me to understand his train phobia by understanding how it originated and evolved.

 

Thanks again so much for posting

 

 

Edited to add:

Thanks everyone for your input and suggestions. I really appreciate the help! Zhivaya is still continuing to improve with the Zylkene. Yesterday he even engaged me to play with him with his toys, so we had a nice run around the house. He still needs some coaxing to go out, but he's been going out three-four times everyday. I haven't tried to take him for a real walk or in the car, so those things are still waiting to be done. I want to let him get a bit more stability before trying that again. His weight is on the dosage borderline for the Zylkene, so I might try to increase from 1 capsule once per day to 1.5 capsules (split into two doses am and pm) after another week or so. The Zylkene is a decapeptide (10 amino acids, a very small protein) isolated from milk, so it's ok to give long-term. They identified it as the molecule that makes babies feel happy, safe, and content after feeding

Edited April 19, 2014 by grey_dreams