The First Draft

I’ve written about Oliver’s separation anxiety before.

I think it’s safe to say he might also have regular anxiety. Whenever there are people around, it’s like he loses his mind. Whether it’s the running around, jumping on people and refusing to leave them alone, or actually peeing EVERYWHERE for no apparent reason less than 2 hours after he was out last, it’s safe to say that’s not how he behaves around the people he sees every day. He’s really quite calm with me, rarely has accidents in the apartment (if he does they are around things that could be considered stressful for him), and has mostly stopped jumping on me in greeting unless I give him the signal to.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to navigate the anxiety while working from home, and it hasn’t been easy. I can leave him in his crate in another room for a couple of hours so he gets used to being “alone”, but it’s not like my apartment is huge. He definitely still knows I’m there, and his reaction is different. I know that if I physically leave the apartment and check him on my living room camera (the “Oli Cam”), he reacts in a way that would seem more like panic to me than the whining to be let out that I get if he’s in there while I’m home.

Suffice to say, there’s basically nothing I can do about that right this second except for leave for increasingly long periods of time in the evening and on weekends and hope he gets used to it. He already gets special treats (stuffed and frozen Kongs) for going in the crate when I’m leaving, I make sure all his chew toys are in there, and he doesn’t dislike it. He goes in there on his own when it’s time to go to sleep, he just doesn’t like to be alone. I’d try leaving him out while I’m gone to see if that helps, but he needs constant supervision because he can and will try to eat anything that will fit in his mouth. (Side Note: If anyone has any tips for any of this, hmu.)

With that in mind, I applied for a daycare on Sunday morning. Tuesday he had his interview, and he is officially a Camp Bow Wow Camper!! I don’t have a ton of money to dedicate to it, but I think he should be able to go 3-4 times a month to run off his energy and socialize with other dogs. He wasn’t shy at all, he was put in the yard almost immediately after he was taken back (Camp Bow Wow takes them to meet a few dogs first, they don’t let them in to the yard until they know the dog will be okay), and he had a blast the whole time he was there. I even think he got to play with a hose.

Out of the two of us, I was definitely more anxious that morning. Oliver just thought he was getting up early and going in the car. I was worried. Worried he’d fail and I’d have to find a different way to socialize him with COVID, and honestly terrified that I haven’t done enough thus far. He’s met a few dogs, but he hasn’t gotten to see them or play with them as much as I would’ve liked. He knows basically no dog manners, and he’s kind of wild sometimes. What if that didn’t translate well to camp?

I had a lot of plans when I first got him. We were going to go to group training classes (rescheduled indefinitely), dog parks (previously closed for COVID, still seem kinda risky imo), and he was going to get to meet lots of different dogs and people! Obviously it didn’t go that way, because nothing in 2020 has gone the way we thought it would, but it left me seriously worried that I’d failed my puppy in ways that could affect him his entire life. Socialization is so important, and we’ve had to spend nearly our entire six months together trying not to socialize with anyone due to a virus that no one saw coming.

Luckily he has NOT developed any anti-social tendencies, but I’m still not sure the dogs at camp managed to teach him any manners.

I really hope Camp will help him build some confidence, because I think that’s where a big part of his problem is. He’s not confident around other people or other dogs. Honestly I’m not even sure he’s confident I’m going to come back for him when I leave the apartment, never mind that I’ve had him for six months on July 21. And even if he still has relatively bad anxiety, I know for sure it will help him as far as exercising and running off steam. I can’t help but think that all that extra energy doesn’t help him when it comes to remaining calm in social situations with people in or around the apartment.

Fingers crossed for my happy camper!