my girl Mango
When Mango became ours in February of 2021, back when she still resembled a black-and-white seal, it never crossed my mind that she might turn out to be a ‘difficult dog’.
Seal-pup Mango on 21/2/21 🦭
I started this blog to share our story - an anxious owner raising an anxious puppo, but until now I have avoided sharing the hard stuff, opting instead to keep it light and fluffy. I’d like to start sharing more of the hard stuff now. Everytime someone has the courage to share their story the world becomes a better place.
She is nervous
Since she was little she’s been scared of a lot of things - people who visit her, the things she encounters on walks (rubbish bins, litter, signage), dogs, a whole watermelon…
We did our best to socialise her, but found ourselves constantly pulling her out of new situations because of how immediately distressed she became.
You know when you buy a pair of scissors, but you would need a pair of scissors to get into the packet?
Socialising Mango was like that - I needed her to be comfortable around dogs, but to be comfortable around dogs I needed to help her out if she felt uncomfortable around dogs, so she never got comfortable around dogs, so I couldn’t get her comfortable around dogs.
And on and on, ad infinitum.
I know that if I had my time again I’d approach socialisation with her very differently. But I’ve come to accept that even if I had done everything differently, there’s no way of knowing if it would change anything.
Like people, some dogs just come out of the box anxious.
Mango is much better now that she’s two, but she still struggles with anxiety, particularly around dogs, people, and novel situations.
2. She is a little bit feral
Friends are often confused as to why I consistently call Mango ‘feral’.
They’ll say “But she’s so sweet!” or “She doesn’t seem feral to me!”
But then I tell them about Mango’s ‘meltdowns.’
Within the first week of bringing her home Mango had her first ‘meltdown’, although back then we called them attacks, because the tiny adorable puppy we brought home would morph into a growling, jumping, biting monster.
At first we assumed it was just a puppy being a puppy, and our initial tactics followed that theory. If she bit/nipped we redirected her onto a toy, we reinforced biting the right things, we disengaged if she bit the wrong things.
Despite this, there was still a latent feeling that this was more than that. Only for the first couple of times we redirected were we successful - and I mean that quite literally. Subsequent attempts failed, because Mango’s laser-like focus was directed at me and could not be distracted by a toy. She was on a mission.
I sought advice from trainers, friends, articles, reddit posts, and experts online, who counselled various solutions, all using the philosophy of redirecting puppies away from biting in general. None of which had the desired outcome - to stop the ‘attacks’.
In the early days I was wearing two pairs of jeans, gumboots, and long-sleeve tops to minimise the damage. I had bruises and cuts/scrapes all over.
As she grew the problems persisted, and as we cycled through new tactics that would initially succeed but inevitably fail, it grew harder and harder to live with Mango.
At its worst, I was getting attacked upwards of 12 times a day - any time I went outside something would trigger an ‘attack’ (meltdown). It was intolerable.
Thankfully, we found a behaviour vet who has changed mine and Mango’s lives with her expertise, compassion and friendship. Mango’s meltdowns still persist - I’m sceptical she’ll ever fully outgrow them, but they are inordinately more manageable thanks to a great professional team, persistence, and increased maturity on Mango’s part.
I haven’t written about Mango’s meltdowns until now because the pain and shame of having a dog with that behaviour is heavy, but it’s something I plan to write more about, in case it helps someone in the same situation.
3. She is a medical mystery
It’s hard to list all of the health scares Mango has had in her short two years because there are SO MANY. I’ll be writing more about them soon, but for now here are the biggies:
She has food allergies: food allergies and very likely also environmental allergies. Things we suspect she is allergic to include beef, chicken, fish, kangaroo and crocodile.
She likely has environmental or contact allergies: she broke out in hives when we washed her with a very gentle, all-natural dog shampoo, and we suspect certain grasses, weeds and pollens cause itchiness and inflammation.
She has stumped various vets by also having allergic reactions to gabapentin and carprofen.
At 7 months old, she had Steroid Responsive Meningitis Arteritis, a potentially fatal disease that requires months of steroid treatment. This was another indicator of an over-active immune system flaring up and attacking itself.
At 12 months old, after her spey surgery, she was incapacitated for a couple of weeks with a stiff neck (a symptom of a SRMA relapse), a hacking couch, and a seroma (build up of liquid at the surgery site) that took months to heal because of a dissolvable stitch that lied on its resume
Working our way through all of Mango’s health issues has been an ongoing challenge, one that we are still yet to solve.
4. She is neurodivergent
We understand so little about the brain and all its complexities. Only in recent years have we come to appreciate types of neurodivergence such as autism and ADHD, typically thought to only affect boys and men, in girls, women, trans and non-binary people.
‘Neurodivergent’ refers to ‘patterns of thought or behaviour that are different from those of most people, though still part of the normal range in humans.’
Mango doesn’t think or behave the same way as ‘most dogs’.
When my behaviour vet first used this term to explain why living with Mango is such a challenge a lightbulb went on in my (neurodivergent) brain.
Coming to terms with my own adult diagnosis of autism and ADHD revealed the unique challenges and advantages neurodivergent people experience, compared to the neurotypical population. Before I was diagnosed I felt a lot of shame and frustration at finding certain behaviours - social constructs being a classic one - confusing and challenging, and at the same time feeling like I had no right to celebrate the things that I could do with ease, or that I excelled at.
When Mango was described that way, it suddenly made sense why traditional tactics had been so ineffective with her. It made sense why we were still struggling with certain behaviours at a year old, including her meltdowns.
There’s a quote that is often attributed, if erroneously, to Einstein.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”
Before diagnosis I was trying and failing to climb trees that others climbed with ease. And it wasn’t until I was diagnosed that I understood I was never meant for the woods but for the water.
Diagnosis, both Mango’s and mine, has allowed me to have compassion for both of us, and to stop putting energy into either of us ‘climbing trees’ and to delight in swimming instead.