Expert: Lee Charles Kelley - 1/2/2008

Question
after my tea cup yorkie was attacked at the beach (who she was originally playing with), the dog was over 100lbs and without provocation she attacked my dog, sitting, stepping and bit her on the back of her spine. no internal damage was done, however my dog is now extremely lethargic, shy and cowering, very afraid and showing no interest in drinking water. how do i help her heal from this?

Answer
Hi, Angelica,

This has happened to me, too, so I have some experience in how to deal with what is essentially post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Essentially you don't want to comfort the dog over this, particularly not by cuddling her. Instead try to keep an upbeat attitude about everything. Dogs take a lot of their emotional cues from how we act, and even from how we feel about a situation. So instead of petting her and saying things like, "How are you feeling? Are you okay, sweetie? Oh, poor baby..." try telling her what a good brave doggie she is. In fact, praise her a lot. Especially praise the slightest attempts on her part to come out of her shell. The only kind of physical attention you should give her, other than letting her curl up next to you when she's sleepy, is to stroke her topline: from the top of her head to her tail, 3 or 4 long firm strokes and that's it. This tends to reduce a dog's nervous energy. You really have to stifle the urge to "calm" her through physical affection. That'll only make matters worse.

If she has a favorite game or activity, I'd focus most of my attention on that. Play has curative powers. The absolute best game for her would be tug-of-war, where you always let her win and praise her enthusiastically for winning. A close runner up would be fetch. Third would be "chase me" where you get her to chase YOU around the yard, or on the beach etc. Another helpful tip is something a papa wolf does with his pups when he wants to build THEIR confidence. He starts by doing a play bow or two, then bats at the pups with his front paws, and then he rolls over on his back and lets them "attack" him. The main thing that you'd want to do is get down on the floor and let her jump on top of you and maybe even nip your nose a little. It'll do wonders for her.

I'd also hand feed her all her meals until she's back to her old self.

I know that this was traumatic for both of you, but stay positive. She's not the first dog that something like this has happened to, and most of them eventually get over it. Of course it'll take a little time for her to process her emotions, but given lots of praise and lots of play, she should eventually come around be back to her old playful self.

I hope this helps. I'll be pulling for you guys,

LCK