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Time heals wounds. It heals hounds, too.
I would not be so rash as to say that our dog, Archie, is cured of all his anxieties, but I will say that he’s in a lot better shape than he was three years ago when we adopted him. Time — plus doggy Prozac — can work wonders.
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Archie is the big yellow Lab we rescued early in the pandemic. He was 7 then, underweight and heartworm-positive. It was easy to diagnose and fix the physical ailments — extra kibble, heartworm shots — but the mental ones were a little tougher to treat.
Archie didn’t like being left alone. Hated it. He’d bark nonstop until we got home. He’d climb on the couch and let out a pitiful moan. He’d ransack the kitchen, knocking over the trash can and sweeping the counter for any food unwisely left out.
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It’s not as if we went out that often. It was the middle of the pandemic, after all. But when we did go out, we’d have to hire someone to be with Archie. Otherwise, he’d practically hyperventilate himself into a seizure.
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We tried Archie on some medications prescribed by our veterinarian — a maintenance dose of an antidepressant; a tranquilizer if we knew we’d be out and couldn’t find anyone to dog-sit — and some “natural” products. We stopped the CBD chews after Archie managed to consume an entire bag of them in a North Carolina Marriott Residence Inn. They didn’t mellow him out at all, and his next few poops were ghastly, smelling like a clogged toilet on the Grateful Dead’s tour bus.
But, slowly, things started to change. We tapered him back to just the Prozac. Then my wife, Ruth, landed on a brilliant idea: copying a Zoom lecture she’d given onto one of those talking picture frames. When we had to go out, we’d walk into the study, shut the door behind us, turn on the tape, then slip out the back door.
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We’d installed Ring cameras in the house so we could see what Archie would get up to when he was alone. We saw that he’d walk around a bit, then lie down with his butt against the study door, Ruth droning away on the other side.
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True, we did once neglect to pull the door all the way shut and to our horror we later saw on the Ring camera that he’d pushed it open. There he was, halfway into the study, probably wondering why he could hear Ruth’s voice but not see Ruth.
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But this turned out not to be the setback we feared. We still turn on that recording and go out that door. Ruth thinks Archie knows she’s not really in there and instead considers this bit of theater a promise that she will be back.
And we Archie-proof the house before we go out. The first time a dog knocks over the trash can and eats a greasy bacon wrapper, it’s his fault. The next time, it’s your fault. Now we put the trash can in the powder room and sweep the counters for food.
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We take Archie with us more often on little errands, too. He likes jumping in the back of the car to pick someone up at the Metro.
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I wouldn’t say that Archie is 100 percent “normal.” When he’s not sleeping — which is more often these days — he wants to be RIGHT NEXT TO YOU, preferably staring RIGHT INTO your eyes in a slightly unsettling way.
But then I don’t know any humans who are 100 percent normal, either. It takes humans a while to work through their trauma. Why would it be any different for a dog?
If I’m being honest, there have been times in the last three years when we’ve questioned the wisdom of adopting Archie — days when neighbors said they heard him bark for four straight hours; days when he ransacked the trash; that eye-watering, cannabidiol-infused dump — but we’re glad we have him.
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And I think he’s glad he has us, too.
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