The Meltdown

The whole family had a difficult summer and fall. My father, who was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma last year, went for a 3 month checkup in July 2007 and they found lesions on his brain. I drove the dogs from Maine to Cape May New Jersey, to help my mother and family care for him as he underwent radiation and a trial drug therapy. He died August 23. We were devastated, and the dogs looked after us well. I took family medical leave to stay with my mother, and we were in Cape May with her two cats until October. The dogs like Cape May, and they love my mother, and the cats became part of their "pack." When we moved back to Maine and I returned to work, they adjusted pretty well to their life at home, but they loved loved loved it when "Grandma" and the cats came to live with us for 6 weeks. Having someone who loved them stay home and keep them company?? Having cats to curl up with and play with? What could be better.

We all weathered our first Christmas without my father and a long drive to Florida, where my mother lives for the winter. The dogs love her condo, especially the lanai. The pack had expanded to include my girlfriend, whom they adore. She had spent the end of December with us in the ice storm, gone with us to Cape May for Christmas, and had met us in Florida for two weeks. We all survived the plane ride home from Florida. And then, when the semester began in mid-January and life returned to "normal"--no grandma in the guest room, no girlfriend at home, no cats in the dog beds, and mom back at work--Stella had a meltdown.

She developed separation anxiety, which she had never exhibited before, and her noise phobias snowballed. New household sounds, such as the baseboard heaters pinging, sent her into full-blown panic. She paced, panted, and trembled. She vocalized when I left the house. She developed anxiety about coming to bed at night, when the heater noises seemed unbearable and sent her flying for cover downstairs. She chose a safe place in the living room, under a table at the far end of the couch, and began to spend hours there. Sleeping at night with a panicked dog was becoming difficult, and leaving Stella in the morning was heart-wrenching. I had to make an appointment with my vet, even though we were scheduled to see Dr. Dodman at Tufts 10 days later. We needed help NOW.

The Story of Stella Part 1: Coming Home

This is the story of Stella, a delightful and funny Shih Tzu who suffers from noise phobia and anxiety. In two days, she is going to visit Dr. Dodman, one of the premier Certified Animal Behaviorists in the country, who works at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts. I am really looking forward to that consultation, and learning more about what I can do to help Stella cope with situations that cause her stress.

Stella is almost four years old. I met her online as a tiny pup, and fell in love with her. She came from a caring and reputable breeder, and I know that she had a wonderful life in the fourteen weeks before she came from Minnesota to live with me in Maine. The first thing I noticed about Stella was how trusting and confident she can be. Her breeder and I met in the airport, signed paperwork, hugged each other, and then I took Stella to catch a connecting flight home to Portland, Maine. When that flight was canceled, I had a chance to get to know my new charge in a hotel room somewhere near the Minneapolis airport. She was happy to be carried in her Sherpa bag and walked on leash, and she took over of the hotel room immediately! She marched on the furniture, tried to eat my pizza, and stretched out next to me to watch TV. She was so excited about the king bed that she couldn't settle down, and I finally had to put her in the bathroom so we could both get some rest. When we flew home the next day, she did really well on the plane, cuddling up by my neck and letting herself be greeted by flight attendants and passengers.

This was also the day she got her name. Stella is named after Brenda Buja's American Staffordshire Terrier, an "off breed" for agility who did amazingly well in the sport. Stella the Stafforshire was a dog that I had a soft spot for as soon as I met her at an agility class with Douce. I remarked on the charm of Stella's name, and Brenda said that it was a great call name and generously invited me to use it someday. In retrospect, I may have sealed my fate at that moment. Stella was shy! But she worked so well for Brenda in agility. So I was set on Stella as the call name for my new pup, but didn't have an ACK name. A Chinese family on the plane with us was so taken with the puppy, and I told them the story of how the Shih Tzu was a favorite of the Dowager Empress. They suggested that she should have a royal name, after the empress, containing the word star, for Stella, so she came home "Xin Xin Gonzu," or "Princess Star." I may I created a monster at the moment, because my girl has two personalities: shy baby, and princess of the world.

On Stella's first day home, she met Douce, her "big brother," who seemed very disappointed--well disgusted-- that she was not a guinea pig, as he had met one he really liked a few weeks earlier. Stella was a bit leery of him, but took immediately to the cat, Zami. I think that Zami, a black and white creature like Stella, and Stella's siter and her father, looked familiar to her. Unfortunately, Zami, at 17 year of age, wanted nothing to do with puppies, and promptly rebuffed Stella's invitations to play. Douce also pointedly ignored Stella for a week. On the seventh day, he invited her to dig with him in his dog bed. A sibling relationship was born. She chewed on his ears and dog tags, he pulled the bows out of her hair, and all seemed right in the household.

The first time I noticed Stella's shyness was when, during her first week with me, I took her to a coffee shop and sat at a table outside. The traffic clearly bothered her, and when a bus pulled up and she heard the air breaks, she cowered under my cast iron patio chair and defecated. At the time, I attributed her response to a lack of familiarity with a city environment, but noise phobia and nervous defecation would turn out to be an ongoing problem for us . . .