# New behavior question



## brierstail (Nov 22, 2019)

Hello, our 1.5 year old Vizlsa recently started showing a new behavior that we think might be fear or anxiety but unsure of why.

Background: He's been going to the same daycare 2-3x/week for over a year now. For the most part, his report cards have always been good other than an occasional dominance interaction with other males (he's not fixed yet). Recently our V has started to show odd behaviors when arriving at daycare. It started with him sitting down at the entrance and shaking/convulsing and has now progressed to when pulling into daycare he starts shaking and is reluctant to even get out of the car. When he does finally get inside and the staff comes up to greet him he goes back to his happy, tail-wagging self. There is no crying or whining. The staff insists nothing has changed at daycare and they haven't noticed any unusual behaviors with him. 

The weekdays not at daycare are spent at home in a crate with a mid-day walk. He also gets several trips to a dog park throughout the week and plenty of social time and exercise with Mom and Dad. We have not noticed this behavior happening anywhere else. 

Is this separation anxiety? Fear of something at the daycare? Any ideas what could be causing this behavior?


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## gingerling (Jun 20, 2015)

"Fixed", lol....having testicles doesn't make him "Broken". 

Anyways, always trust your Vizsla, they never lie. Something likely happened at day care, the time is not 100% supervised. It could have been something very quick, but it still affected him. So, he associates that negative interaction with the place, hence the anxiety.

You can try to keep him home for a while and have someone take him out for a mid day walk,etc., or find another day care. The proper way to work thru this is to find the offending dog and carefully reintroduce them, reinforcing good behavior with both. As an FWIW, doggie day care often sounds better than it most often is, very often it's just a free for all (which doesn't suit either young dogs nor Vizslas generally) and it isn't really better than leaving him at home after having been exercised and maybe a mid day walk.


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