Managing My Dogs' Anxiety is a Full-Time Job

It’s hard for people to understand how much care my anxious dogs need, especially when I also have anxiety and constantly worry about them. It sounds silly, but I could probably be a stay-at-home dog mom and be continually working.

Thankfully, I work from home most days, so I’m able to care for them, but they also take up a lot of my time. I have two pit bulls that I rescued, and both were found in poor condition. We’re not sure what happened to them, but my little one, Bobby (literally 27 pounds when we adopted him and was full-grown, while emaciated), seems to have spent most or all of the 8 months before he was taken to the shelter on the streets. He’s a scavenger and has literally eaten a baby bunny, a bird egg, a rotting toad, a dead mouse, bugs, and I’m sure a lot more. He seems to have had a hard time, as he has several scars and a few that look like burns on his head.

Donnie may have been surrendered, as he was potty-trained and 3-years-old, but his behavior signals a rough past. He has severe noise anxiety and is startled by any sudden or loud noise to the point of hiding and shaking.

We see a behavioral specialist for them. The doctor has said Bob is the worst case of potty training he’s ever seen because he refuses to go outside no matter what we’ve tried for a year and a half, and poops just to have a snack. He also said Donnie’s anxiety level and lack of reaction to multiple medications is the type of case he only sees once or twice a year.

They used to get along but began fighting last year, and we had to separate them with baby gates in our already small home. Both have developed severe separation anxiety and do not want to be left on one side of the baby gate without my husband or me accompanying him. This makes working from home alone extremely difficult.

I’ve developed a schedule with them that works until about 2 PM, and then all hell breaks loose. We wake up at 6 AM with my husband, and they go out, have breakfast, and take their ever-evolving cocktails of anxiety medications. Bobby usually roots through his cheese slice and spits out one or two pills. I give it to him again. He spits it out. I try again. I lay down on the couch with Donnie because otherwise, he will destroy everything he can find that’s made of paper (DVD cases, entire packages of toilet paper, kids drawings, etc.) Bobby may go back to sleep, or he may jump up and stand on the dining room table whining at me for 25 minutes before falling asleep on it.

I wake up before 9 AM, and we go out again. Their medications and regular morning sleepiness keep them calm until about noon. Then Bob becomes restless and needs to be switched to the other side of the gate with me. Donnie doesn’t tolerate this abandonment (a foot away from me and behind a barrier). He literally makes screaming and howling noises until I give him a yak milk stick (basically a hard cheese bone) or Kong filled with peanut butter. He finishes this after 15 minutes and comes to scream again.

At this point, I pray to God that it’s sunny outside and I can let him sit in his favorite spot on the front porch. If not, I have to ignore him until he lays down in 15-minute increments. Sometimes he just wants to be in the living room, so I have to move away from my workspace to sit with Bobby on the other side of the gate in my room or in the dining room.

At 2 PM, they need more pills. Bobby keeps jumping in my lap and nipping my face. They get meds, and we go out again. No one calms down for at least an hour, and I spend that time asking them to please stop whining and barking and staring at me. They don’t.

At this point, we play outside for a bit, and I hope again that this will make them sleep. It might, for a little while.

By 3:30, they already want dinner. They usually eat around 4 because they can’t wait any longer, sometimes 3:45 if they just won’t stop. Then we have to go out again.

Donnie whines until my husband gets home and rescues him from his terrible mother around 5.

They’re exhausted by that time and happy that Dad is home, so they’re perfect angels and go to sleep right away. They get pills again at 8:30, go out, and hopefully sleep through the night.

Donnie sleeps in the living room, and Bobby sleeps with us. He refuses to be left alone at night. He will bark and whine for hours and never stop. Donnie is usually okay but frequently wakes up in the middle of the night and whines because he has to poop or he’s just lonely. My husband sleeps through all of this, and I have to sleep on the couch so Donnie will go back to sleep. Sometimes Bobby wakes up because Mom isn’t in bed and whines at the gate for a while before giving up and going back to sleep.

Any noise I hear at night, I’m on alert, ready to jump out of bed because Donnie is whining or tearing something up.

Then, we wake up and repeat.

I left out all of the poop and pee I clean up in my house throughout the day. Bob usually does both in the bathroom at least once a day, and Donnie has recently started peeing on the living room carpet out of spite. We put potty pads down, but they go out of their way to avoid them most of the time.

If we leave the house, they get extra pills and need food toys to distract them while we sneak out. Then they scream some more. Once, we recorded Bobby for four hours while we were gone and he barked and whined the ENTIRE time. When we got back, his eyes were bright red, he’d peed outside of his cage, and he couldn’t stop panting. We’ve since got the meds to help a little with his separation anxiety on this front.

All I do is worry about my dogs. I love them so much, and they are like my children. I constantly worry that they aren’t happy or will give themselves a heart attack from anxiety. I have nervous breakdowns when I can’t take the whining anymore while trying to get big projects done for work. I can’t wait for my husband to get home every single day just so the dogs calm down.

But then, just like a toddler who was a terror all day, they snuggle up to me, give me a tiny kiss on the nose, and everything is good. They lay in funny positions and sit on the porch covered up in cat blankets. They comfort me when I cry.

My dogs are stressful and annoying, and anxiety-inducing, but I also wouldn’t know what to do without them.

So, to everyone who doesn’t understand what it means to have two highly anxious dogs, this is for you. And to everyone who does understand and deals with the same thing, I am here, and I support you. We’ve got this. We are strong dog mamas and papas. We are anxious ones too, but we do it for the pups.

Read about how my dogs inspired me to start painting here: https://vocal.media/petlife/painting-for-pit-bulls