Three confusing behaviors all in one post!

[Susinko]

Hello! I have a six year rescued chocolate lab named Ellie. We've had her about three years now and she is my first dog. Ellie is a good dog but she has some confusing behaviors that I wanted to ask about. I was debating about making separate posts for each, but I thought that would be more obnoxious than helpful.

1. Ellie is extremely food crazy. I know this is a lab trait but Ellie seems to take it to the next level. At first Ellie would gobble her food down in under ten seconds. We got her a bowl with bumps in it to slower her down and it does. It now takes about 25 seconds. Whenever I have food, make food, or eat food, Ellie used to stare at me a lick her face and drool. At first. She then started to jump up and 'dance' in place with excitement. My husband thought that was funny and would encourage her 'dance'. Then she started to jump up if I shift positions in bed, get up for anything, breathe, look at her in any way and just circles, licks those lips, drools, does little hops and such. It wouldn't be so bad, but now she's tripping me, nudging me hard and being an absolute pest. I don't understand why she escalated. I never feed her from my plate nor do I reward her when she's like this. I always have her sit before I release her to go eat. What happened and how do I stop it before someone gets hurt?

2. Ellie isn't friendly toward dogs or other people. She isn't mean and she doesn't attack and bite. She just ignores them. Ellie will wag her tail, sniff the dog's nose for a second and then look away. She'll mover her head so that the dog isn't looking right at her. She won't play with other dogs. She'll sit and ignore them, no matter how much they wag and wiggle their butts at her. With people, she'll sniff frantically to see if they have food and then ignore them in the same way when they don't. It's like she just doesn't care. I take Ellie with me everywhere, so she's out with people and other dogs all the time. In the three years I've had her, she's only showed aggression toward three other dogs (to be fair, it looked like they attacked her first) and has ignored hundreds more. What am I missing here? Sometimes she'll do the same to me and she loves me more than anyone else!

3. Ellie has extreme separation anxiety. I've tried the training where you leave her for short and then increasingly long periods of time, but it doesn't seem to help. If I even shut her out of my room for some time with my husband or when I'm going to the bathroom (she decides she's a lapdog then), Ellie's a shaking, crying, drooling neurotic mess. Wen I have to leave her at home by herself, I'll come home to her circling in her crate with her water knocked over, her shivering, crying and the floor outside the crate covered in drool. I've told the vet, but he still recommends the leaving her for short periods of time to condition her. Does anyone have any other kind of advice? Why would she be so upset about being in the living room with my door closed? I'm right there!

I know I'm very lucky that she doesn't chew, bark much, makes messes inside (unless garbage spelunking is counted in) and such, but those three behaviors confuse me so much! Any thoughts?

[Woofie]

Sounds like this girl was terribly ignored in her previous home.

No 1 issue - have you had recent blood work done on her to make sure she doesn't have a medical issue causing the increased hunger?.....Could also be the time of year, my dogs are eating more right now. BUT, I would have a thorough blood panel done.

No 2 issue - Some dogs like the attention of other people & other dogs, some dogs don't. Yours does not crave that & I personally don't see anything wrong with that. She is 100% devoted to you and that is NOT abnormal for a previously neglected puppy.

No 3 issue - I'm not sure how to answer this question because I too had one of those dogs who had been horribly neglected/abandoned by his first owner & truthfully left to die; we found him at 9mnths old, his entire life we dealt with separation anxiety issues. He also had seizures when he would stress out, so we learned to live with it, we didn't care to force issues more then we needed too. BUT....when we would leave the house & had to crate him, we would give him a kong full of peanut butter, that would keep his attention enough to tire him out, generally we'd come home finding him sound asleep.

This girl found you as her savior, you saved her from a previously horrible life, IMHO from the sounds of it; she's happier, yet fearful that the same thing will occur one day. Some dogs grow out of it, some don't.

I've had both...one that never grew out of it; yet our bond was so tight, so it did give him confidence, just could never get past that fear of being neglected again.

Our current pup, who's 2yrs old now, was also horribly neglected & abused in her short 4mnths before we adopted her. She grew out of most of it; but is superbly attached to one dog in particular, her non-biological brother; she's still skittish somewhat....does not like to just go up to people & does not like them to approach her. She won't bite or growl, but she will cower down and pee .....I won't let people approach her, I tell them to just do their normal thing, she'll come to them if she wants too, she generally does on her OWN time.

[Annette47]

Can’t help with number 3 as I’ve never had a dog with separation anxiety, but for number 1, if a medical explanation is ruled out, you could try what we had to do with Scully as a pup because she was SO obnoxious when food was around even though we started out not wanting to feed her from our plates. We taught her down-stay, and whenever she would beg for food, we’d make her do a down-stay which was eventually rewarded with food. At first we couldn’t ask her to hold it very long before her little head would explode, but eventually she would know that during meals, if she came and laid down quietly near us it would eventually pay off. I would also teach her “off” or “leave it” and enforce it if she starts being too much of a nudge at other times - especially if she’s making physical contact with you. Chloe tends to paw at us when she wants something and it IS annoying. Your best bet is to teach her an alternative behavior that will get her closer to what she wants than just trying to ignore the unwanted behavior.

For number 2, as Woofie said ... that’s just who she is and it doesn’t sound like it’s a real problem. Chloe is the same way with most other dogs - a quick sniff and she loses interest in interacting with them. She is more interested in people, especially if they have treats, but not all dogs are.

[Maxx&Emma]

Have you discussed using meds for the separation anxiety with your vet? My older dog suffered from fairly bad s/a and her vet prescribed Prozac. Using the meds and lots of conditioning for about a year really helped her. It is not very often that someone is not home with the dogs now but the Prozac really helped her years ago.