sleep anxiety?

Question
Hi there Kristin,

We have a 5 year old shepherd/husky mix neutered male named Riley.
We sleep upstairs with a baby gate across the stairs so that Riley cannot get up. He has slept downstairs for 5 years and not had a problem.
Until recently, he has started whining and trying to jump over the baby gate. If we go downstairs during the night to see him he is usually panting heavily.
We eventually give in and let him sleep upstairs.
Except when he comes upstairs he is still panting heavily.
We have tried everything, as to putting a night light downstairs for him, putting music on, turning the t.v on.
We have tried finding a reason to his behaviour but nothing seems right, he has slept through thunderstorms before, and does not mind them. There was no sign of any robberies that he could have gotten scared about.
-The day his "panic" started we heard him whining in the night, so we went downstairs and he just got worse, whining incredibly, panting, shaking.
-When we leave home we don't believe he is upset or anything.
-There are days where he hasn't greeted my mom when she comes home from work, he just stares at her and then walks away.
-He only does this at night, every night.
-When we bring him upstairs right away at nighttime he will not pant.

So I guess what I am narrowing my question down to is:
Why all of a sudden is he doing this?
Why is he still "panicking" when we bring him upstairs?
He's terrified about something, is there anything we can do?
He's been doing this for a couple of weeks, some days we give in and other days we listen to him whine all night.

Thanks a bunch,
TASHA.

Answer
Hi Tasha,

I can't say why Riley is suddenly fearful at night. He may be reacting to several situations like a sudden change in his crate or containment area, or in your furniture set-up, a stressful incident, the sound of the furnace, or 1000 other things. Keep in mind that the smallest change in Riley's environment may cause some sort of a disturbance in his schema of daily events, which can lead to difficulty in sleeping.

Riley may still act panicked when you bring him upstairs, because the fear response has already started, and he doesn't know how to stop it. One simple thing to try to keep Riley calm is to leave on a radio that's tuned to a talk station, or that plays soothing music.

Sometimes dogs have a bad fear response during thunderstorms, and are given a dose of the over the counter antihistamine Benadryl (diphenhydramine), which acts like a mild sedative. That's something you might want to try over a few consecutive nights to see if that breaks Riley of his night time fear habit. You may want to run this past your veterinarian, particularly if your dog is on any medication. Only use regular strength Benadryl. The frequently recommended Benadryl dose for dogs is 1mg per pound. That means that a 50-pound dog would take 50mg, or 2 adult capsules. It will make your dog sleepy/groggy so keep him away from stairs. This definitely not a long-term solution, but with any luck just breaking Riley's habit for a couple of days will be enough to stop the habit.

Increasing Riley's daily exercise would be helpful too. A tired dog is more likely to sleep soundly.

There is an FDA approved product called Pet Calm that's worth trying. It's a blend of herbs, vitamins, and minerals helps support calm, relaxed behavior in dogs. It's for use when taking your pet to the veterinarian, on a plane, on a car trip, during storms, or during other times of stress, such as Riley's night-time frights.

Another thing you can try is something called a Dog Appeasing Pheromones, or DAP. This is a synthetic hormone which dogs naturally react to. These pheromones mimic the properties of the natural pheromones of a puppy's nursing mother. Dogs retain the calming response to these pheromones, even when they're grown. DAP is used for anxiety, fear and trauma issues. DAP comes embedded in a collar (like a flea collar), a spray, and as a plug-in diffuser. You can read more about DAP here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040422225509.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Comfort-Zone-Modification-Plug-P/dp/B00076KPPM

I hope that helps!
Best of luck,

Patti