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what is this??? scared...

cvk

Member
My puppy is 5 months old. He was chasing his tail earlier and bumped into the wall a bit (did not get hurt) but yelped, ran under the couch and has been really skittish ever since. He is also looking around like he is hearing voices and when I hold him he shakes like he is really really scared. It must me something neurological, but doesn't seem like traditional SM. He is not scratching or biting at flies or anything...just looking around like something just made a noise or poked him and is very scared. He was chasing his tail and has done this from time to time since I have had him, but not obsessively or anything like that. He was acting fine all day. This was like a light switch.

Any thoughts? We have a vet appt tomorrow morning.
 
When Leo was a pup he came through the dog flap one day and a kitchen cabinet door came off its hinges! It didnt hurt him but it did scare him badly. After that I couldnt get him to use the dog flap again. He was very wary, if he was in the garden he would just sit at the back door and scratch at it to come in. (It took time and patience to get him to use it again)
It maybe that your pup has just had a very bad fright. It is definatly worth getting the vet to heck him out thought.
 
Your puppy is still very young, and many things are still new and strange. Like human babies, they can't always work out what is happening - he hit the wall, but he may well interpret it as the wall hit him, and rooms are surrounded by walls that may all be waiting to pounce on him again! A useful exercise for puppy owners is to lie down on the floor and look at the world from a puppy's eye view. Furniture is huge (a table isn't a table, it's four poles disappearing into the sky), people are initally feet and a bit of leg until you are picked up, things fall off tables like asteroids descending from heaven (my Aled, although 18 months when I had him, was in many ways like an inexperienced puppy. He got very scared of footballs for a time because the children kick them over into my small garden, and to Aled they must have looked like a planet falling out of the sky to get him!).

There may be a physical reason for his behaviour, but it may just be a temporary scare that he will grow out of as he gets bigger, more experienced and and more confident.

Kate, Oliver and Aled
 
Tail chasing can actually be a sign of a neurological issue/obsessive compulsive disorder. It's not really associated with SM but there may be something else going on. On the other hand many puppies tail-chase and grow out of it. There's a lot of debate on how to manage and whether or not tail chasing can be s gin of other issues. A vet visit is a good starting place. It may just be that he was a bit shaken by this one experience and it's just a momentary behaviour glitch but at the same time you are describing a range of things that are odd -- how long has this been going on since he hit the wall? I can't tell if this happened today or a while ago. If just today or yesterday, possibly he suffered a concussion from the impact...? If it has been a few days or more like this -- then yes def see the vet and if they have no idea perhaps consider talking to a neurologist. If he tail-chases a lot -- I would mention that to the vet as that could be important to considering possibilities.
 
I'm sorry I didn't give more details. I wrote this in a frenzy last night as I was also communicating with his breeder. My boy is a happy go lucky pup, not sensative at all to much and this was just a complete behavior change. He was acting really scared for about 2 hours after the wall and then he stopped shaking but the strange paranoid head movements didn't stop (like he was feeling things on his back). I took several short videos of his behavior yesterday and my breeder fears it is a neuro thing. She is meeting me at the vet this morning.

He just seemed completely disoriented for most of the night. He seems a bit better this morning, but I am still seeing some odd "paranoid like" behavior. I've been reading about neuro issues and I am seeing some other symptoms which I thought were normal before...lip licking, lots of yawning, he rubs his face on the carpet sometimes (not obsessively though) and I have seem butt scooting. Ugh... I know this might not sound like much, but my movie clips were alarming to my breeder. These behaviors all seemed fine as he was acting like a normal happy pup, but last night, he was not at all.

My breeder scanned both mom and dad. I have copies of the images. I hate this. I'll update after the vet.
 
He may have hurt himself when he bumped into the wall; even though he might not have seemed to. He could have twisted a muscle, or banged against the wall and managed to trap a nerve, or something like that. I would have him checked by the vet. Also chasing tail behaviour, might need his anal glands checking? just a thought.

I agree that pups can easily get a bit of a fright. Hope he's back to his old self soon.
 
WOW, sounds a bit like my dog when he was a puppy. He chanced his tail frequently when he was younger. I don't know if it was related to his sever CM/SM but since starting meds for CM/SM he has completely stopped. He also used to bark at things that were not there. He would stare at a blank wall or floor and act very scared of. He sometimes freaked out over imaginary objects other times it was objects that had been in the same place for days. I actually remember posting on here about it a long time ago. One time he freaked out over the chair that had been in the same spot since we got him. Since starting neuro meds this has nearly stopped. He still does it mildly from time to time but it is very manageable. He has also developed a pretty sever guarding issues that our vet believes is also neurological. It's almost like he doesn't know what he is doing. He zones out to a "different dog".

Hopefully your pup just scared himself but if it continues to happen I would be looking for a neurologist.
 
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