Hi Everybody! Its me, Barkley!

I thought I would start by telling you my story so that you can know a little bit about how I came into The Lady and Mr. Dave’s life (that’s what I call my pawrents), and how this website came to be.

Foster
I was surrendered to Bulldog Haven Northwest (BHNW) in Feb 2021 by a family who loved me but had to make a difficult decision for all the right reasons. You see, my first family had a new family member, and I was very jealous and didn’t know how to handle my emotions, so they made the difficult decision to surrender me. I needed a home with no other dogs (they call me an only), and The Lady and Mr. Dave were available. I had a few health needs, so they thought they’d have me for 6-8 months and then I’d become adoptable, I sure fooled them!

When I came into rescue, I was a bit fluffy, so the first thing the vet said I needed to do was to lose 19 pounds! Can you imagine having to lose 19 pounds! Once I lost the weight, I would need to have soft palate surgery to help me breathe better; this is a common bulldog need. I also had chronic ear infections that required a bit of detective work to determine what was causing them – this ended up being food and environment allergies, which we’ll talk more about in my blog.

During my first few weeks with my foster family, I began to show them my personality. I was a loving boy who wanted attention, but I was also very nervous and had some anxiety. I would beg while they ate dinner, I would try to hump them, I wasn’t a very good walker, I didn’t allow them to hug or get near each other, and I was obsessively licking the air and furniture. I also HATED going to the vet. About four months into my foster, I also started trying to eat my leash at random times when we were on a walk.

Leash eating became a really big problem for me. My bulldog community recommended several solutions such as trying different leashes and bitters. We tried leather, fabric, and chain leashes, and we tried soaking my leash in bitters, but none of this worked. Later, we’ll go into more detail about my leash eating.

Over the next six-month, my foster family worked with me to curb my anxiety, get my ear infections under control, and lose weight. Once I was down to 60 pounds I had my soft palate surgery and I was ready for adoption!

Adoption

While with my foster family, I used all my charm so they could see how adorable I was. I wormed my way into their hearts and made it difficult for them to put me up for adoption. I don’t think anyone at BHNW was surprised when The Lady and Mr. Dave decided to become my pawrents.

My family decided to hire a trainer to work with me to see what we could do to stop me from randomly trying to eat my leash. The trainer worked with my pawrents on various commands and introduced us to a snuffle. If you haven’t used a snuffle to eat your kibble, I highly recommend it! The trainer also got to see me try and eat my leash – she diagnosed this behavior as resource guarding. Now we needed to figure out why I was resource guarding my leash and how we could prevent it from occurring. Let’s talk about resource guarding for a moment.

Resource guarding is an aggressive behavior a dog will show for an item they consider to be high value. High value items can be food, toys, or even a person. When we resource guard the item, we can exhibit behaviors such as growling, lunging, and even biting. For me, I would be either going out for a walk or on a walk, and I would grab onto my leash and hang on for dear life!! I wouldn’t let go for anything! There were instances where I grabbed onto my leash and “fought” to keep it for an hour or more. If they let go of it I would try and swallow it, so they would need to grab onto it again. Eventually, I would be so tired that I was collapsing with exhaustion, and I’d finally let go. Now that we had a diagnosis, we needed to figure out how to stop it; the trainer introduced my pawrents to a video about The Language of Dogs and suggested we have some blood work done to see if I had a medical issue (no medical issues were found).

The Language of Dogs was a great introduction to what signals I would exhibit before resource guarding. Signals can include panting, whale eyes, air licking, a quick turn of my head, and more. We also journaled my day, so we had a diary of what I did on good days and bad days. These tools have become an important part of my journey, and while I’m not perfect, my resource guarding has subsided. I’ll tell you more about what’s occurred as we go on.

My Journey

Shortly after I was adopted, The Lady took me on a three-month road trip! I rode over 10,000 miles, crossed the continental divide twice, crossed the mighty Mississippi four times, and went to 13 states! During this trip, The Lady took me to her former vet in Missouri for a nail trim and an allergy shot. This was probably the most important stop on the entire trip!

The Lady let the vet clinic know that I have a lot of anxiety at the vet, and I hate getting my nails trimmed. The vet clinic asked if I should be sedated for my nail trim; we didn’t know this was a thing, but after some discussion, we decided it was a great idea! Because I was being sedated, The Lady would need to leave me at the vet for part of the day; this vet visit became a life-changing event for me! When The Lady came to pick me up, the Dogtor came out to the car to talk to her, he asked her if anyone had ever recommended I take Prozac! He handed The Lady a 30-day supply, for free! and said we had nothing to lose – give it a try! Well, I’m not sure where Prozac has been all my life, but I can tell you that it has been a life-changing drug for me, and I can’t thank Dr. Becker with Independence Animal Hospital enough! Prozac has helped reduce my anxiety to a manageable level.

After our road trip, The Lady decided we needed to try a few more things. We found a vet who worked with dogs who have behavior challenges. It’s important to call out that she wasn’t a behaviorist, she helps with behaviors. During our first visit, we talked through my journal, and the things we wanted to address such as being afraid to go to the vet, random leash resource guarding, and my anxiety. The vet suggested we do three “happy visits”, where I just go to the vet and she sits on the floor playing with me and gives me treats. I loved this! We also decided to increase my Prozac dosage, and she recommended a behaviorist for us to work with.

Next, we started working with the behaviorist. The behaviorist came and spent three hours at the house observing me. We talked through my journal and talked about my resource guarding, and training. As the behaviorist watched me play, he noticed that something was going on with my hips and that I had an odd gait. He recommended that I have some testing done to see if there was something medically going on with me. The short version of this was, I do have something going on with my spine, and I grab my leash to let my family know I’m in pain and don’t want to walk. I’ll share more on this journey in my blog stories, but for now, know that I’m taking pain medicine, and it’s really helped!

All of this is why I decided to start a blog. We have learned so much about ways to address anxiety, things to do for food and environmental allergies, and ways to help me be the best Barkley I can be. I want to share all these topics and more with you, so you can help your best friend too. I hope you’ll follow our blog as we share our adventures!

Barkley, The Lady, and Mr. Dave