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Yes, we’ve had another of “those” times. Toby was in pain without me realizing it, and the slightest brush against his fur turned him into Mr. Hyde.

Toby’s anger is explosive in these instances. He bites and thrashes and growls ferociously. In this state, he doesn’t recognize me. He doesn’t recognize his name. He doesn’t respond to commands. Normal Toby is adept at disentangling his paw from his leash, but Hyde Toby can’t reason that out. He just gets angrier and angrier until he lashes out and attacks the leash. As quickly as I could, I put Toby in his kennel and kept him there until I could take him to the vet in the morning.

It appears that what set Toby off was the cyst on his back. Of the two he started with, one healed nicely while the other lingered. The doctor drained and flushed the cyst again and sent us home with antibiotics, pain medication and Trazodone. I gave Toby the Trazodone for a few days but worried about him taking it for a prolonged period. He is very unsteady on his feet, and I swear I can hear him mumble “The colors…. the colors…” as he waves his paw in front of his nose.

I gave Toby sleepy pills for several days. When I finally stopped, it was as if he were a puppy again. He bounced around and played with toys. He asked to go outside, and when I took him he ran around with the zoomies for half an hour. When we came in, I could tell he still had energy to burn, so we went back out in the dark and played with tennis balls until he was so tired that I worried that he might hurt himself.

Thankfully my normal Toby seems to be back to inhabiting this terrier body. I don’t know who the monster was that had control for those four days, but I wish he would never come back. I’ve seen his face before. He is the one who controls the sleepwalking.

I talked to the vet about trying anti-anxiety medication on Toby. She said that Trazodone is for anxiety, but I didn’t like the way it affected him. She then suggested Gabapentin since it helps with both anxiety and pain. What Toby really needs, though, is an animal behaviorist to observe him and treat with both training and possibly medication.

Selfishly I wish that someone would watch my Toby and tell me, “Oh yes, he is a broken puppy. It’s not your fault he behaves this way”, but I doubt that will happen. Somehow, without meaning to, I have screwed up this little dog and made a dangerous mess of him.

I hope my little boy can survive my stupidity.

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I may survive you, but will you survive me?