[nagdu] stress, how much is too much?

[Sarah]

My dog has been getting startled at loud noiffc!.  If he's scared 
of something, like our handicaped black Lab and he's stressed he 
simply breakbs .  of his collar and goes to the other side of the 
room and hefuse"!-every when called.

Sarah and Wizard

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy Carcione" <carcione at access.net
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog 
Users" <nagdu at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:35:30 -0500
Subject: Re: [nagdu] stress, how much is too much?


Sometimes, if we're away at a festival or convention, and Ben has 
worked
from morning to night for a couple days, I can tell that he's 
wants a
break.  If we're out late, he starts looking toward the door, or 
turning
forcefully towards our room.
During class at TSE, on the weekend before the third week, he 
just shut
down.  He wouldn't get up when I called him.  He tried to crawl 
under the
bed and hide when I picked up his leash.  It was very upsetting.  
But I
learned then that his reaction to stress is to sleep.  If I let 
him rest,
leave him in peace for a while, he's back to his usual self.
Tracy
 I'm wondering how your dog's show that they are stressed and how 
much is
 too much?

 a bit of background...a few months ago I went to an all day 
meeting out
 of town.  This involved about 8 hours of car travel there, an 
overnight
 hotel stay, the all day meeting, another hotel stay and the car 
ride
 home.  Monty has done all of these sorts of things before and 
since.
 Before this weekend he showed few signs of stress and they were 
minor.
 However for some reason still unknown to me Monty had a tough 
time this
 particular weekend.  His signs of stress included: looking at 
everything
 incessantly, startling at noises, lip licking, difficulty 
relaxing  at
 relief breaks, shaking and pulling like a crazed maniac in 
harness.

 For me his signs of stress were pretty high.  If he had 
continued at
 that level I would have stopped working him.  We have struggled 
off and
 on for the past few months with smaller episodes of 
stress/anxiety.
 Overall things have improved dramatically.  Occasionally he will 
do the
 lip licking and the looking at everything, but he's not at a 
level that
 I feel is risky to his or my health or  safety.

 Recent messages to the list and my own situation caused me to 
think
 about and ask the questions: How much is too much?  What would 
cause you
 to quit working a dog completely? What would cause you to quit 
working a
 dog in a particular situation?

 Julie


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