Dog Becoming Very Nervous/Excited

Leah -- absolutely the very first stop **must** be the vet.  And I would suggest because she's a purebred that you have your vet send a thyroid panel to either Hemopet.org or to Michigan State Vet School (far far more accurate than sending it to a local lab.  A bit more expensive but the breed-specific answer and the more accurate answer are what you need).

She almost sounds hyper (too high) thyroid but you can't just assume that  and hyper thyroid wouldn't be typical BUT it is possible and it's more dangerous than hypo thyroid (low).

In order to defuse something like this (it's like a form of separation anxiety)  you likely will need to do some serious desensitizing and there are others on here who are a better trainer than I am.  BUT you **must** start with the full physical exam first.  I'd ask the vet to also do a full blood chemistry on her at the same time so you have not just a CBC (complete blood count) but you want all the liver, kidney values etc.  so you can rule out anything physical and THEN you can attack the behavior/training.  

The thyroid can give some odd signals sometime.  You may want to read "The Canine Thyroid Epidemic" by W. Jean Dodds, DVM (you can get it on Amazon and I promise it's an interesting read -- maybe not to read it cover to cover but the info is amazingly helpful).  

Blood for a thyroid test does *not* have to go overnight. Priority Mail is FINE.  There are complete instructions on how to prep the blood to send for your vet on the Hemopet.org website.  

and PS -- your vet may say "she doesn't LOOK like a thyroid problem" but that's why I said to read the book -- I have a female who is the complete antithesis of hypothyroid (she's SKINNY as a rail and almost nervous and totally NOT laid back but she is actually quite hypo(low) thyroid.  It was an amazing transformation after we found that.  I had the test done b/c I thot *she* was hyper thyroid  (the whole skinny, way too nervous and twitchy thing) but she surprised me big time.  

DON'T let the vet just send it to a regular lab -- it's just not accurate enough.  They use the same index for all dog breeds/ages ... it's a waste usually.

Thanks for this advice! She recently was at the vet where they said she was overweight. We found that hard to understand because she is on an eating schedule where we monitor how much she eats and she also goes on daily walks. This is definitely something I will look into. Thanks again!

Thanks for sharing this info with me! My cat was recently diagnosed with an over-weight condition, but it was hard to believe that she is overweight because we feed her according to a plan and take her walking every day. I will look into this right away.

A friend of mine had a cat who suddenly gained weight simply because a kitten came along, and the cat started eating the kitten food. And the clue is that kitten food has a lot of nutrients that an adult cat doesn't need.

My dog was also upset and got nervous when I had to go on a trip to volunteer. Luckily after returning he was perfectly fine. It's just a matter of time!

www.adventurevolunteer.org/.../volunteer-in-spain

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