Our first boxer, Bridget, suffered from a severe arrhythmia most of her life – though apparently it wasn’t the typical boxer cardiomyopathy. After a series of syncopic episodes (fainting spells) – they were very scary – a holter monitor test identified the problem. Bridget survived another 3 or 4 years with the help of Sotalol, a drug used to treat arrhythmias. Though we thought this condition would lead to her death, she died with the arrhythmia, not from it. It was cancer – another disease that beleaguers boxers – that took her in the end.

The good news about this discovery is that breeders will be able to test their boxers for the faulty gene and avoid using those that carry the gene in their breeding programs. Over time, it might lead to an end to this affliction in boxers. A simple cheek swab test should be available some time this summer, according to the press release.

Bridget playing in the waves with a new found friend on the Sunshine Coast

Sassy and Ceilidh, best buds

Background
See references at end for more information.
A Twitter post yesterday by @sarchet62 (”Pills for your pets OMG http://is.gd/HuJH“) inspired me to finish a blog post I started two years ago describing our experience with Sassy, our rescue boxer, and her severe separation anxiety. My non-professional writing efforts often bog down, ending up in my drafts file never to be revisited. I dusted this one off today and updated it to reflect time passed and add some references. Sassy died in 2006 – I miss her to this day – so writing about her keeps her alive in my memory.

Back in January 2007, a rescue boxer adopter asked a question on the Boxer Rescue Canada (BRC) blog about dealing with severe separation anxiety. Several people offered suggestions, asking for more information about the boxer in question, and as one of the responders noted, this can really be a difficult nut to crack. When we adopted our first rescue boxer, Sassy (who was our second boxer), we thought we were prepared for any issues that might come up as she settled in with us and we with her. We’d done a lot of reading, and I’m a member of the Boxer Mailing List (BML), a listserve for boxer lovers where people discuss all things boxer. Issues involving rescue boxers is a hot topic on the list. I’d been reading messages on BML about rescue boxers since we decided we’d like to adopt an adult boxer after our first boxer, Bridget, died in 2002. Not in our wildest imaginations did we think we’d be dealing with the kind of extreme separation anxiety Sassy displayed. It was a lengthy road helping her with it, while trying to maintain our own sanity.

Realization – separation anxiety raises its ugly head
We discovered very quickly, the second day we had Sassy, when I headed out for a 10-15 minute walk around the block with our other dog, Ceilidh the pug, that there might be a problem. About half a block from home, I heard the most high pitched and loud frantic barking, which got louder and more urgent as we approached home. Our poor Sassy, it turned out, was terrified to have been left alone! Apart from wanting to alleviate Sassy’s distress, we live in a townhouse-style condominium and share walls with two neighbours and our ceiling with another – so we needed to find a solution to this and quickly.

I spent the next day doing Internet research and posting to BML. Many, many people emailed with their suggestions and encouragement, saying it would, eventually, get better. And it did – but not for many months – and some aspects took several years.

Crating Sassy wasn’t an option. She had spent the first four years of her life in a 6 x 6 foot pen in a backyard with a Rottweiler. The rescue worker we adopted her from – the wonderful now-retired Tracy Hon of Chico Boxer Rescue – had told us that Sassy was really claustrophobic and this turned out to be only too true. She was trustworthy loose in the house from the beginning, gentle with Ceilidh and not prone to destructive activities, but we just couldn’t go out and leave her, even with Ceilidh as company.

Thus began many months of desensitization work. When I look back on that time, about six months of solid work and being trapped by this situation, I wonder sometimes how we managed to get through it with our sanity preserved. The bright and very shiny star in all of it was Sassy herself. She was such a sweet girl after our wild Bridget – she made all the hard work worth-while. She had us laughing out loud with her antics and her wonderful sense of the absurd.

Tactics – the long, hard road to a solution
We count ourselves lucky because both of us had very flexible work schedules, which accommodated Sassy’s need to have at least one of us around most of the time. I worked in my home office two to three days a week at that time – and on the days I had to go in to a client’s office, Shelley would arrange to work at home or take Sassy to work with her. During the day, we would take breaks from work and do outings, gradually increasing the time every few days by 5 minutes at first, then 10, and so on. We set up a tape recorder so we could get a sense of how Sassy was doing – we didn’t want to be too close by, just standing outside the door or the hedge, because these uncanny creatures can sense our proximity. We thought we were doing pretty well until we reached the 30 minute mark after weeks of short, incremental increases in our absence. For some reason, Sassy couldn’t get beyond this mark without starting the frantic barking again.

Following the wonderful advice from BML members and rescuer workers at BRC, we began with really tiny baby steps. We spent a few days preparing to go out, without actually leaving. We’d put on our coats, pick up our keys, and set the alarm system – then sit down on the couch for a few minutes before doing it all again in reverse. After a few days of that, we’d get ready to go out, set the alarm, step outside, lock the door, and then come right back in. (It had to be within 30 seconds at first, as that’s when the barking would start.) Over weeks, we worked up in this fashion to 10 minute outings, stuffing a large Kong with cookies and peanut butter to occupy her as we went out the door. Ceilidh, during all this, would get a plate with peanut butter or yoghurt smeared on it down at the end of the hallway (she’s always barked furiously for a minute or two whenever we go out the door).

Calm comings and goings
Along with the desensitization of short, then longer outings, key to the process was to keep comings and goings as calm as possible: a quiet “watch the house” when we left was instituted; a quiet greeting on returning – difficult when Sassy was turning inside out – and even ignoring her for the first 5 or so minutes replaced the usual happy greetings.

Reaching for pills…
Pills aren’t the first solution I reach for, but they have their place at times.
Getting desperate since we couldn’t seem to break the 30 minute mark, we began to look at other options. We tried a citronella “no-bark” collar to no effect – other than to provide us with a lovely lemony scent when we came home. After weeks of this, we finally went to our vet about it, and she prescribed a drug, since we weren’t having success any other way (we’d been at it for about 6 weeks at that point, and still couldn’t go out for more than 30 minutes. We hadn’t wanted to go the drug route, but there it was –Sassy was prescribed Clomicalm (clomipramine).

Once Sassy was taking the Clomicalm, we continued the incremental additions of 5-10 minutes, going slowly, slowly, upping our absence to longer and longer each week. We considered the drug therapy to be an interim step, something we would discontinue as soon as we could. By the time we got to the 3 hour mark (the local pub and coffee shops would see us every day, working away on our laptops, or catching up on work-related reading), we knew we were well on our way to resolving Sassy’s problem. It would have been very difficult if we hadn’t for the days when we had to be gone for hours at a time,

A humourous note – hiring a babysitter
Although Sassy eventually could be left for a full work day, for those days when we both had commitments on the same day, she took several more years to adjust to evening absences. For some reason, she understood we’d come home again if we gone during the day, but she just couldn’t generalize that to evening outings. On the rare occasions when we both went out in the evening (hmmm, we happily lead rather quiet lives these days), we ended up hiring one of our neighbourhood kid friends who would come over and spend time with the dogs. It worked well – Sassy was happy and our friend would earn a few dollars, trading his usual herd of toddlers for a canine mini-pack instead. It took several years before we could leave Sassy at home in the evenings without a babysitter.

Not without a cost – possible adverse effects
Just at the point when we were planning to wean her off the Clomicalm to see how she’d do drug-free, Sassy had a grand mal seizure. It was frightening to see, as I’d never known anyone who had seizures. Shelley, though, knew just what to do, having grown up with a younger brother who had seizures regularly. She cradled Sassy’s head until the thrashing subsided and just let it run its course. We couldn’t help but wonder if Clomicalm was the culprit, and our vet (a boxer breeder herself) thought it was a possibility. As with many psychotropic drugs, withdrawal had to be gradual. Over a period of several weeks, we decreased her dosage bit by bit until Sassy was “off the meds.” As far as we know, Sassy never had another seizure – she may have had one when we weren’t around, but there were no obvious signs that she had.

Success
I remember an email from BRC’s Marta Nettelfield early on in our long road to getting a handle on the problem. She was very encouraging, saying it was early days – and she was right. We were glad to finally be free to come and go, knowing that Sassy’s separation anxiety was under control as long as she had her treat-filled Kong to entertain her as we slipped out the door.

References

Behavior modification best medicine in treating dogs’ separation anxiety [news release from Kansas State University]. (2005). Available: http://www.k-state.edu/media/WEB/News/NewsReleases/listanxiety419.html.

Humane Society of the United States. (2002). Separation anxiety. Available: http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/our_pets_for_life_program/dog_behavior_tip_sheets/separation_anxiety.html.

Humane Society of the United States. (2003). Solving barking problems. (Behavior series). Available: http://vetmed.illinois.edu/behavior/pdf/Barking%20Problems.pdf.

Segelken, Roger. (1996). Study: ‘Nuisance-barking’ dogs respond best to citronella spray collars. Cornell chronicle. Available: http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/96/6.6.96/barking.html.

Seksel, K., Lindeman, M.J. (2001). Use of clomipramine in treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, separation anxiety and noise phobia in dogs: a preliminary, clinical study. Australian Veterinary Journal, 79(4), p. 252-256. PubMed abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11349411.

UC Davis Center for Companion Animal Health. Companion Animal Behavior Program. (2003?). Separation anxiety in dogs: bibliographies, websites & resources. Available: http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/CCAB/separation.html.

Freckle and Mary-Doug training at Vanier Park

This weekend Freckle and I will be competing in Rally Obedience, a new dog sport and fun obedience trial where handlers can talk to their dogs and where you can compete with mixed breed dogs or unregistered purebreds. It’s the first trial that either of us will have done; at least, I assume it’s Freckle’s first – since she’s a rescue, I’ll never really know.

I admit, I’m a bit nervous – wondering if I’ll remember the course, wondering if Freckle will be too distracted by the other dogs and competitors. Like most boxers I’ve known, she has a bit of ADHD in her – and it usually comes out when there are lots of things to distract her. A quick search on youtube and Google uncovered only one boxer, Bounce, doing Rally O. Hmmm … I wonder if there’s a reason for this? Bounce is really good, very cute and apply named.

We’ll be doing our first leg of three in Novice A. Novice A is the class for a handler (that’s me) who hasn’t taken a dog to a title yet. We need to be passed by three different judges in three separate trials to get Freckle’s first title. Novice level is on-leash and tests the dog’s understanding of basic commands. We have a full day seminar to learn the rules, ask questions, and get to know the course. I found a good video of a gorgeous Newfoundland dog doing the Novice A exercises. This  sheltie is prancing through his round.

Freckle and I have been working hard, trying to fine tune our “performance.” That means Freckle has to REALLY pay attention when we’re doing our heel work, as she has a habit of checking out the goings on around us. Sometimes she surges ahead a bit, not realizing I’ve come to a halt and that she’s to sit smack down, quickly. Sometimes she’s spot on, and sometimes she realizes too late that I’ve stopped. Then she scootches back into position, but that’s a no-no in the ring. We’ll be practising lots over the next week and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

For a look at what NOT to do in the ring, check out Alvin, the sweetest looking young English bulldog, doing his Rally O round. He has a great sense of humour. I wouldn’t put it past Freckle to do a round just like Alvin’s!

Vancouver Boxer Meetup: subset of the virtual "community" of boxer lovers meeting face-to-face at Vanier Park in Kitsilano last September

I’ve heard it said among some of my friends that an “online” community isn’t really a community at all. This is usually said by friends who are resistant to using their computers for anything other than either for work or for personal research.

Our blog posts for the FOC08 course are to be reflective and personal rather than academic (which is my first instinct!) – a not completely comfortable undertaking on my part. As I think back over my years online and my involvement with various technologies – email, listserves, forums, and now social networking applications – and think about the friends and acquaintances I’ve made along the way, I realize, for me, that community does exist online. The “groups” aren’t much different from my “real” life groups, except that I don’t always know what my online friends and acquaintances look or sound like. We congregate as a group for many of the same reasons we do in “real” life: common interests, shared places of employment, geographic proximity, mutual support, information seeking, etc.

On the personal side, I’ve been involved with the Boxer Mailing List for the last 6  or 7 years. Over time, I’ve made friends with a number of people from this community and have been lucky enough to meet several in “real” life. Our community has been badly shaken by the suicide of one of our members and the early and unexpected deaths of several others. It has rallied to help a rescue worker pay expensive hospital bills after she was badly mauled by one of her rescue dogs (not a boxer, incidentally) – she didn’t have health insurance because she couldn’t afford it. We’ve rejoiced with members who have gotten married, given birth, graduated from school. We’ve cried together when we’ve lost a beloved companion. In short, we’ve interacted in much the same way as we would if we were living in the same neighbourhood, worked for the same company, volunteered in the same organizations, studied in the same schools.

On the professional side, I’m been a member of a number of associations and listserves to do with librarianship and the information world. In our online forums and listserves, we share both our professional and personal lives. Again, there is camaraderie and a willingness to help and be helped by others, just as there would be in the “real” world.

Some of these communities are more “friendly” than others; some are more active, while others have more lurkers than participators. Just as in “real” life, we participate online in diverse communities, interacting and sharing with others as we go about our daily business.

My sense of community is one in which we interact with and touch other people in an emotional or intellectual way – this regardless of the physical environment, geographically close or distant, online or face-to-face. I don’t see my online connections as being all that different from far-away folks with whom I keep in touch by mail or phone. Keeping in touch online provides a different and additional means of connecting and building community. Being online expands my community in a seemingly boundless way, offering me a way to “be” with people I might otherwise never meet. I’ll be reading other FOC08 participants’ blog posting about online community over the next few months, seeing where we agree and differ – again, another commonality between online communities and “real life” ones.

We’re going to have lunch together and probably go for a walk along the dikes in Surrey. I also get to meet one of Marta’s boxers, Lobo, for the first time. I’ve been following his exploits at a distance and am really looking forward to seeing him in person (or should that be “in dog”?).