The t-touch thing is really interesting from a behavioural point of view.... what parts of it have you tried? Does the bodywrap/t-shirt help him? What homeopathic remedies have you tried? If he seems more drawn to men could you get a man to try the t-touch and see if the same thing happens? Apart from the vomiting did he show any other signs of stress?
Do you think he picks on Morgan as Morgan is the smallest out of the other 3? Did they used to get on ie play together or anything? What do the other dogs do when Barney has a go?
The T Touch workshop was an introduction to it. I used the circle and a quarter randomly over his body, cupping his ears in my hand and rotating them in both directions and holding his ear between finger and thumb and running them down his ear. I also did some mouth work, some belly lifts with the wrap. During the workshop they put a wrap on him to try help him calm whilst he was vomiting and it didn't appear to have much of an effect. Since using both the T Shirt and wrap at home I can't really say I can see an improvement. I persevere because my view is they can't do any harm.
I would have always described Barney as a stress monster and that was indeed how I introduced him at the workshop. However during the course of the workshop I discovered a lot of the other behaviour I put down to him being a Cocker was actually him exhibiting signs of stress, far more than I ever thought and I was completely devastated that he was sooo distressed. I also felt a huge amount of guilt for my relationship with my ex ending as it has devastated him so much.
Other signs of stress are his constant pacing, his howly cry he does while pacing. As soon as I make any move to get up he starts frantically spin and scream which I find quite stressful when all I want to do is go to the loo. He licks an awful lot too which I learnt was a sign of stress too at the workshop. He intermittently poo's inside when really stressed. He howls with screams if he thinks he's missing out on something. From being a pup he never liked the idea he might be missing out on something but that has got much worse since my ex left.
His tail never stops, now I thought that meant he's happy but I learnt that wasn't always the case and he does seem to have excessive tail wagging which can also be another sign of stress. Barney either is frantically on the go or completely crashed out and he goes from one to the other in a split second. The vet was quite surprised when she witnessed it.
The practitioners spent some time with Barney and said that they weren't surprised I'd not recognised the things they pointed out because he does hide his stress well in terms of how he is when they met him. He's desperate to bestow his love on everyone he meets and at face value looks at happy chap. They all wanted to take him home.
I really don't know a man who would do T Touch with him. My family don't want to know about any of this ("we told you gold cockers were nothing but trouble"
They know nothing about dogs but a very "helpful" friend informed them of this just before I got Barney and in their mind they've been proved right. For a long time I hid the problems I'd had in the past).
I'm going to sound a bit dumb about the homeopathic remedies I'm afraid.
I am new to homeopathy and recently moved vets to a practice that offered it as a first point of treatment. The first remedy was in pilule form and is Nat Mur 1M according to the label, the second remedy was in tincture form and is Ignatia 1M and the third was pilule but I no longer have the bottle as it was all used up. In all the cases the dose was 1 pilule/spray evening, morning and evening once.
Barney and Morgan have on the whole got on and used to play a lot when Morgan was a puppy but don't now. Barney has always had a jealous side of him. If he was sat on my ex's knee and any of the dogs came up to him he would snap at them. I always told him to make Barney get down immediately so that he learnt that behaviour got him precisely the opposite of what he wanted. However my ex refused no matter how many rows we had about it.
Barney knows if he behaves like that with me his cuddle ends immediately and rarely tried it on. However in the last few weeks he has been doing and I am standing firm.
Both the boys like to cuddle up on me when I'm laid back in my rise/recline chair. If Barney's on first and Morgan jumps on Barney has started to snap and snarl more so he is told to get off immediately. If Morgan is on first and Barney jumps on he's happy to share.
Barney did from time to time try to push others having a fuss out of the way and I've never stood for that. This problem is now getting worse with his persistent pushing others away or blocking them. I am ignoring him and continuing fussing who I was originally. I think its just showing that he's not becoming more unhappy and needing more reassurance constantly. However I'm not going to allow him to get away with this behaviour because I fear it will be a very slippery slope to more bad behaviour. When he has eventually stopped pushing in for his turn he gets loads of cuddles just like everyone else.
Sapphi and Max move to the other end of the room when Barney is attacking Morgan. I'd not really realised what they were like after I had intervened and stopped it until the day I threw the remote and when Barney had skulked off to bed I asked Sapphi to go and fetch it for me and she was too frightened to go for it as Barney was quite close to it.
I think i've answered everything!
