Since no containment method worked, we decided to simply leave her in the house. For the first couple times of this, everything went fine. Then one day we went to lunch with friends and when we came back we were in for one of the biggest scares we've ever had. We opened the door and immediately saw that everything - lamps, books, wine bottles, keys - had been knocked over and thrown about the apartment. At first I thought we'd been robbed. By the door was a huge pile of vomit, and chunks of our door frame had been eaten away. The really odd thing though was that Annie didn't come running up to us. We didn't hear her tags jingling. Everything was way too quiet. We quickly found that she'd also gone to the bathroom in every room, something that's very unlike her, and actually kind of strange seeing how small her stomach and bladder are. I started rushing around the house, looking under the beds, checking every one to see where she was. That's when I saw the open window and the broken window screen.
I immediately knew she had fallen out of the window which we had stupidly left open. We didn't think anything of it because the window is so high up and even when it's open it still has the window screen on it. We live on the second floor, which I think is about a 40 foot fall. I called out to Ellen that she had fallen out of the window but was afraid to even go to the window and look down. I was sure she would be at the bottom, dead. When I looked I didn't see anything, so I rushed outside and searched the surrounding area. Nothing. I was encouraged by this because I knew she hadn't died from the fall, but I felt sure she would have broken legs.
I started running around the neighborhood yelling her name, following the same path on which I take her on walks. Sure enough, about a block away from our house, I saw her in front of me walking down the sidewalk. Thankfully no car had hit her and she seemed ok. I called her name and she turned and waited on me to run to her. She was covered in mud but seemed able to walk. I checked all her bones and nothing seemed broken. I texted Ellen that she was safe and brought her inside. We bathed her and took her to the vet. Miraculously she had no internal bleeding and no broken bones. Essentially, she was totally unharmed. The vet gave her the name "Annie The Flying Dog." So then Ellen and I turned to the mystery of what happened while we were gone.
We chalked it up to a loud noise that scared her, causing her to knock over some stuff which then scared her more. We thought it was a fluke. Unfortunately, we were wrong. Over the next week or so, we noticed her attempting to stop us from leaving. She would block the door when I picked up my keys or she would bite my socks when I tried to put them on. I had to resort to crating her again if we left, but she howled and banged herself against the bars so hard we were afraid she would injure herself. It was clear she had separation anxiety, but we still hadn't quite grasped how bad her case was.
We began to feel like we could never leave the apartment without her hurting herself or everything we owned. Plus, we rent our place so we couldn't allow her to destroy it. Thankfully I work from home, so I was able to be with Annie almost all the time. Her separation anxiety was getting worse though, because even if I'd leave her in the apartment for 2 minutes for me to run down and throw a load of laundry in the washer, when I came back she would be whining, panting, or shaking.
Then about a week ago we were invited to a screening of Tree of Life at The Academy, and we decided to try again leaving her at home while we went to the movie. We were on edge the entire time. After the movie we rushed right home to check on Annie. Our stomachs were in knots. When we walked in the door we immediately knew things did not go well. She had eaten more of our door frame and thrown up much more. She had gone to the bathroom so much that it actually covered a large part of our living room floor. She had fallen in it and then jumped all over the walls, so our walls were covered in poop. We had to literally clean every surface in our apartment. We had to wash chair covers, scrub floors, clean walls... It was a disaster. And the worst part was walking in in the door and seeing her shaking so violently. But she became completely calm just minutes after we walked in the door.
It was clear she was in considerable distress when we were gone. Something had to be done. Of course over the previous weeks we had read every article and watched every video about separation anxiety imaginable, but the scary thing was each one said the same thing: severe separation anxiety is extremely difficult to rehabilitate and should only be attempted with a certified animal behaviorist. So I called our vet, got her advice, and then started calling animal behaviorists.
Then we really got depressed. It turns out there was no way we were going to be able to afford a behaviorist and possibly medication for Annie. And neither of those options came with a guarantee. Everything started to seem hopeless, and we became more and more emotional. We were extremely attached to Annie and loved her very much, but we simply couldn't afford to treat her. We also couldn't afford to keep her like she was.
So we began the difficult process of looking into no-kill animal shelters or finding another family who could take care of her. We were told by our vet and behaviorist that having another dog companion would most likely fix Annie's problem, so our goal was to find a family that was either home all the time or had another dog. I can't even explain adequately how emotionally drained we were at this point. Ellen would literally cry at the mention of finding Annie a new home, and I felt the need to fix this situation as soon as possible. I spent the next two days non-stop calling animal sanctuaries and posting ads. No one seemed to have a place for Annie Hall.
Until a couple of days ago I got an email from someone saying they were interested in meeting her. We talked back and forth for a while and I explained all of Annie's issues. She still seemed interested and even felt like her home might be a perfect one for Annie. She's married and has a 4 year old son, and her father lives with their family full-time. She would take Annie to work with her, but even when Annie must be home her father is always there. He doesn't leave the house. They even have a cat to keep Annie company. I took Annie to their house yesterday just so everyone could meet. The husband came home from work to meet her as well. Their little boy was fascinated by her, and everyone really fell in love with her - just like Ellen and I had done. Annie even was calm around the cat, who nonchalantly appeared for a moment to check things out, then disappeared again. They let me know they definitely wanted to adopt Annie, and after checking with their vet to make sure things were on the up and up, we decided this would be Annie's new home. So this morning I brought Annie there to live full time.
Last night was a hard one, since it was our last night with this dog we've come to love so much over the last month. It's so hard to make the decision to rescue a dog, find out she's everything you wanted her to be, then discover she has a psychological condition you can't fix and you can no longer keep her. Even though we love Annie, our home still isn't a good one for her. But we are resting in the fact that her new home will be great - someone will always be there so she doesn't have to be alone. And all she needs is a friend around at all times.
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