Dog Depression is Real

He sleeps more than I do, and that's saying a lot.

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I've had my dog Koda for going on three years. Crazy I know. I got him when he was a few weeks old. He initially grew up with two older animal friends for the first year and a half of his life. Following that, he joined his uncle (my moms dog) at my moms house while my job took me away for a few months. He's always been around other animals. Then we moved across the state.

Now, it's just me and him.

He is depressed.

And I mean, full on depressed. He sleeps like twenty hours a day, doesn't play with his toys, is anxious about every sound in like a three block radius, and just is sad.

Because of my own depression (read about that here), I began to look into a lot of new things, including how my mood effects my dog. As I've seen with my own eyes a cheerful dog deteriorate.

He lights up when we visit the local dog park, he gets to run around with the tennis balls in the open running space, but then powers down once we climb the stairs back into my apartment. He gallops towards me when he finally decides to play with one of his toys, then drains himself of all energy. He only eats or drinks when I sit next to his bowls, then waddles back to his blanket under the living room table. He only has spurts of activity, then it all disappears.

I knew that dogs could feel their owners emotions and tons of other things that go with the pet/owner bound, but it took one week to realize I had shared the worst of mine.

At his current state, I decided to visit the vet to see anymore they could suggest. Short story made shorter, he's now on prozac. That's the life my once hyper and overly active Jack Russel/Yorkie mutt now lives. It is truly heartbreaking.

Things I wished they warned me about! I mean how could have I predicted my own downward spiral of depression, but it would have definitely swayed some of my choices had I know I was bringing my dog on the ride.

As I continue this crawl out of my own depression, I have an innocent bystander that I will catapult out of it first.

Pray for me. But more importantly, pray for Koda.

Chelsea