obsessive behavior

Question
My dog Shayla has a lot of obsessive tendencies. She is a 3 year old German Shepherd. She chases shadows by pouncing on them, staring and looking for them. This goes on for hours and hours on end. Nothing works to detour her from doing this, not food, other toys, or physically removing her from the area. She runs right back and continues the behavior. She seem to do this mostly when I have company. She also has a behavior issue with whining. She will whine for hours at my Son and my Daughter when they are over. My daughter even lived with me and when she would be home the dog will whine at her all through the night when we go to bed. She moved out, she couldn't sleep. I can't take my dog to the vet because she lunges and barks at the vet and the assistants.She also has a submissive urination problem. When people come over, people cant talk to her or pet her if they do either, she will pee. She knows she does it and obviously tries to stop herself by tucking her tail between her legs with no avail. She is on doggie prosaic and it is not helping in the slightest. My friends say my dog is nuts and they don't know how I deal with it. The one thing is, when its just the two of us, none of this behavior is present. Please help. I'm afraid I have to put her down. That would be very hard for me.

Answer
WHY would any dog have to DIE because it's terrified and suffering from a neurological problem???

The dog does not tuck her tail between her legs to attempt to stop urination, that is a signal of fear; her urination is submissive urination.  This dog appears not to have been properly socialized to people and she has a strong inherited tendency toward fear (a by-product of very bad breeding in the GSD for many, many years).  Lunging and barking at a veterinarian is a fairly common occurrence in most veterinary practices; if your veterinarian is unable to deal with this in a calm manner, find another one.  Prozac is NOT the drug of choice for any dog: there are multiple side effects to this drug in humans, INCLUDING increased anxiety, agitation, fear and visual disturbance, emotional dissociation, etc.  Dogs cannot TELL us when they're experiencing adverse side effects.  None of this is ANY business of your "friends"; this dog is YOUR companion and your responsibility, they should mind their own business (and I'd strongly advise them of same if I were you.)  Because the dog is CALM when it's just the two of you, this is strictly behavioral (except for the shadow chasing which could be a sign of neurological disorder).  As the dog's owner, YOU are the source of all training and management; you're not a supernatural being, you can't change this dog's temperament or genetically acquired problems, but you CAN intervene with a behavior modification program intended to help the dog to increase her cognition, become desensitized to fearful occurrences (which may include the appearance of "strangers", i.e,. visitors, to your home, etc.) and teach her behaviors she can perform for reward.  Obviously, since you've been paying for generic "prozac", you're financially willing to make an investment.  This dog is YOUNG, she has her entire life before her: to kill her because she has emotional problems is totally unacceptable when there are methods that can address her problems.

First: I suggest you find a veterinary behaviorist who can more thoroughly evaluate the dog's neurological health and offer suggestions for behavioral intervention.  You can find one here:
http://www.veterinarybehaviorists.org/
http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonline/

This veterinary behaviorist will most likely be able to direct you to a certified applied animal behaviorist (or a sophisticated and credentialed trainer) who can work with you and the dog to change her associations with fearful experiences and assist you in desensitizing her acquired fear responses.  Whining is a juvenile behavior intended to solicit attention and communicate anxiety/pain, etc., and should be totally ignored (unless the dog is ill or injured).  People may be responding to the whining which has further encouraged the dog to offer this behavior, but NO ONE SHOULD DIE because they cry!!!  Submissive urination is a sign of overwhelmed and perhaps mismanaged reaction to other people, this can easily be avoided by not allowing your dog to be the object of attention by others until you have learned to help her to see their presence as rewarding.  The dog's cognition is totally ABSENT when you have visitors and she is redirecting her attention to shadows because she is in a state of learned helplessness and possibly has an underlying neurological problem.  NO DOG, or any other animal, has to DIE because it suffers from emotional and physical inadequacies; if that were the case, half the population of our species would be dead.

STOP listening to your "friends".  Try to find a veterinary behaviorist; do NOT take this dog off the "prozac" abruptly, she must be weaned off this drug and you really need veterinary assistance while doing it.  Low level anti-seizure medication may be of some help if her anxiety is precipitating low level temporal lobe seizures; a beta blocker (propanolol) may be of some help to truncate her fight/flight reaction; this is why a veterinary behaviorist might be invaluable.  You'll have to go back to square one with this dog in terms of training (positive reinforcement ONLY), behavior modification/desensitization to fearful stimuli, and your overall reaction(s), as well as those of your children, which (out of KINDNESS) may have inadvertently rewarded her negative reactions.

Meanwhile, you can read Nicole Wilde's "Help for Your Fearful Dog: A Step by Step Guide to Help your Dog Conquer His Fears" and learn how to read dog body language (because this dog is telling you a lot of things and you're misinterpreting them) by going to Turid Rugaas' web site (she wrote: "On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals"):
http://www.canis.no/rugaas/index.php

When the dog whines, leave the ROOM (put a closed door between you and her for 30 seconds); ignore it totally.  Using positive reinforcement training, teach her one solid behavior ("sit" but use a unique word) she can always perform successfully: find out how to use this method of training to teach all sorts of behaviors by going to Dr. Ian Dunbar's web site: DogStarDaily.com.  DO NOT GIVE UP ON THIS DOG.  She's absolutely worth all the effort you will make to help her deal with the genetic, and acquired, problems that are NOT her fault.