"After Midnite's frantic destruction of the crate, I simply couldn't bring myself to crate him again, so instead I put him in a covered ex-pen. Midnite seemed to tolerate the ex-pen better than the crate. He had more room to move around and could see everything, and he seemed quite pleased with this arrangement. Until I came home from work one day to find he had broken out of the ex-pen and trashed the playroom. It was at this juncture that I began to wonder if I was helping or hurting this dog. I had talked with my veterinarian before about Midnite's behavior but because he was slowly but surely improving we thought I was on the right track. After the trashing of the playroom I contacted my vet again and she recommended a behavior modification specialist.
My first "meeting" with Dr. Cooper was an hour-long telephone interview. A week after the initial telephone interview I took Midnite to a two-hour appointment at her office. Midnite's entire history was explored and a copy of his file was made available by my vet for Dr. Cooper. We discussed additional behavior modification techniques (principally random departure training) and conducted a battery of tests to rule out any physical reasons for Midnite's condition. I went home armed with Rescue Remedy, a folder of information on separation anxiety and hoped that we might get through this thing yet.
Several weeks later progress seemed minimal. My work schedule made random departure training difficult and I was feeling frustrated, though not yet ready to give up. Midnite was still very stressed; I was unable to leave him loose in the house and he had gotten worse again about being confined. The day he began to self-mutilate I reached for the phone and pleaded with Dr. Cooper for help. Considering all the things we had already done, she suggested we think about drug therapy. Dr. Cooper researched all the information she could find regarding the use of various drugs with greyhounds. She finally found an antidepressant that she felt she could safely prescribe and we determined to start with a very low dose.
Dr. Cooper had warned me that it could take a month or more for the medication to kick in. At first we noticed no difference in Midnite's behavior. But slowly he seemed to relax a bit. After a
