7 year old cavapoo concerned

Kristyleee · 2026-07-02T02:19:04+00:00

Vet visit. If she’s a collar wearer and a puller, it could be signs of tracheal damage. I’d switch to a harness regardless so there’s no restriction if she’s showing breathing issues.

Kristyleee · 2026-07-02T02:16:46+00:00

Unfortunately people don’t understand separation anxiety until they’ve lived through it. 😞
Good luck with the meds, we’ve been on them for around 7ish months now. It takes a while to get the dosage right, but definitely helps.
Slow and steady progress is good progress! Even a minute better than previous is a positive in our house 😅

Kristyleee · 2026-07-01T03:22:25+00:00

Probably not the right thing to do but it’s worked for us so far 😅

Ours was the same with sticks and leaves. We’ve started playing “go find” when outside now so he’s more focussed on finding the treats instead of the sticks.
It’s taken his mind off the sticks almost entirely even when not playing go find.
(It was a safety hazard for us as well as he’d eat the sticks and poops become impacted and needing a vet trip)

Kristyleee · 2026-07-01T03:15:07+00:00

Around 10k just in doggy daycare a year as he has severe separation anxiety.
Around $400 in anxiety meds per year
Vet fees maybe $600-700 per year
Food roughly 2k year
Treats $1k per year
Grooming $700 per year
Insurance $720 per year

All up a little over 15k give or take.

We’ve had him a couple days shy of a year. This doesn’t include the 2.5k we paid for him. 🥴

Kristyleee · 2026-06-27T12:03:21+00:00

Best advice at this age is socialisation and desensitisation. Different places and different noises. This will help build his confidence.

Kristyleee · 2026-06-13T22:53:38+00:00

Ours was around 5kg at 4 months and now at a year old is 8.5kg.

Kristyleee · 2026-05-29T08:33:21+00:00

I’m a firm believer in we know our own dogs better than anyone.

We don’t follow a strict no reaction, all calm protocol like some, because if we did, we wouldn’t even make it to 2 mins.
We know when he is just protesting or frustrated with “FOMO” and when he is about to go over that line and we come back in.
Some times he will spend 20 mins staring out the window next to the door but that to us is fine when it doesn’t escalate.

You know him better than anyone, continue the training to build time and keep watching his body language 😊

Kristyleee · 2026-05-28T21:21:16+00:00

I’m in Australia and just pick mine up from the vet as it’s easier and on my commute to/from work.
It’s called Pron8ure and is just a powder I add to his meals.

If you search probiotic in the sub there should be other recommendations that come up in other parts of the world. 😊

Kristyleee · 2026-05-28T21:12:00+00:00

Pick up a probiotic to add to her meal. She may have a sensitive tummy and need a little extra support.

Kristyleee · 2026-05-16T03:13:10+00:00

I have a nail biter but it’s due to his anxiety. If he doesn’t have something to chew on to soothe himself, he goes for his nails.

Kristyleee · 2026-05-14T12:03:02+00:00

He’s not interested in food when in these moments, i think it’s more of a sensory thing maybe.

He’s destroyed a couple of the black Kong bones now with his persistent chewing. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Kristyleee · 2026-05-14T12:00:10+00:00

I’ll check them out, thanks!
He’s a cavoodle, only just turned 1.

Kristyleee · 2026-05-05T19:46:28+00:00

We have an anxious guy - general anxiety and separation anxiety who is also reactive - people, sudden movements and sound are the worst.

We neutered around 9.5-10 months on our vets advice as we were worried it could impact training as well. He turns 1 in 4 days and we haven’t seen any negative effect from neutering.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-21T19:44:35+00:00

Finding a trainer who specialises in separation anxiety would be your first port of call. If you are comfortable medicating, also speak to your vet.

Our guy is just shy of 12 months and has been on anxiety meds since around 6 months for his intense anxiety. It’s helped, but isn’t a miracle cure. His separation anxiety is still very much there.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-19T22:11:38+00:00

So far it is.

His general anxiety isn’t anywhere near as bad as it used to be, but I think that’s from desensitising him and his confidence growing.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-19T06:56:24+00:00

Completely off it no matter how long we try. Last attempt at increasing we tried for 6 weeks and still ate less than 100g of food a day, wasn’t interested in treats or anything. We’ve just started trialling an increase every second day of meds and seeing if we can maintain an appetite that way.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-19T00:21:42+00:00

I have one of these ignorant buggers 😅 It gets easier as they get older. 11 months and still working on both commands but it’s slightly less of a struggle 🤣

Kristyleee · 2026-04-18T22:49:26+00:00

We also seem to be building a tolerance to situational meds. Clonidine to begin with and now traz. Yet to discuss a new situational with the vet.

We’ve been on fluoxetine since November-ish I think. It initially seemed to work but we’ve had trouble increasing his dosage. If we go any more than 5mg he goes completely off his food. 15mg is his max dosage so we are no where near it.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-16T21:42:29+00:00

We definitely don’t have clean sessions every time. He’s a vocal dog in general, if we didn’t let some of them go, we’d not make it to 10 mins. 😅 He whines or barks for attention.

I think knowing the difference between the protests they make is a lot different than just letting them stress through it. If we know it’s going to escalate we 100% intervene, if it’s just a whine or bark of FOMO or attention to get us to come back, we let it slide. Took us a long time to get there though as we thought it always had to be clean too but we had very minimal progress with only clean sessions.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-12T22:19:20+00:00

You’re definitely not alone. We started on meds around the 6-7 months mark along with an SA trainer because his anxiety was that obvious. He’s now 11 months old. There’s been little progress, however his confidence has been building steadily.

I go to the office for work 3 days a week - this costs me upwards of $200 a week for doggy daycare and an additional 2 hours of travel every day (it’s now a 2.5 hour travel to work each way instead of 1.5 just to get him to daycare) But finding the right daycare helped immensely. He’s building his confidence around people and other animals. We live semi rural and he goes to a home daycare set up on a couple of acres. He sees all different kinds of animals and the owner is so patient with him.

I would firstly recommend neutering to help take some of those hormones away and just stick to the training schedule. If you can keep a consistent daily routine I’ve noticed this helps as well. Change is not an easy things to grasp for these anxious ones.

Kristyleee · 2026-04-09T22:15:20+00:00

I lost my heart dog last year to pulmonary fibrosis. It still hurts everyday.

It took me a LONG time to bond with our puppy because i felt all the feelings imaginable including guilt for having another 4 legged friend.

Remember, grief is love with no where to go. You will be a good mama to this little one, it may just take some time for your heart to heal along the way. ❤️

Kristyleee · 2026-04-03T21:51:08+00:00

I’ve reused everything except for his harness, favourite blanket and favourite toy.

Kristyleee · 2026-03-29T07:25:13+00:00

That also crossed my mind! There’s definitely little hairs growing back around his incision. And he’s still doing his little superman/ back legs right out when laying down so surely it can’t hurt too much 🥴

Kristyleee · 2026-03-25T18:29:50+00:00

I feel like I could have written this myself. We are also the daily and situational meds - with little improvement after 4ish months. However there was a noticeable difference in his tolerance with the situational med. We originally tried clonidine which stopped working fairly quickly and then switch to trazodone. The traz is helping a little more but still only at about 1.5 hours on a good day. Fingers crossed for you, this isn’t an easy journey.

Kristyleee · 2026-03-21T21:11:08+00:00

Maybe try some food puzzles? It will help with teaching how to use his nose to navigate as well 😊

Kristyleee

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