We have a 18 month old collie / Jack Russell cross bitch. We've had her since she was 5 months old. She's always had a tendency towards anxiety (we were her 4th home ) and needs a lot of exercising, which she gets, but she has calmed down a LOT as she's got older and is just a lovely part of the family.
Just the last week or so she suddenly seems stressed to me. She's quieter than usual at times, but also has started growling at people walking past the house (never done that before) and, this morning, had a mad barking fit that, as far as I could see, was directed at a man wearing a hoodie who was quite a long way away from her.
She's not showing any obvious signs of being in pain or unwell. Nothing's changed in her circumstances or routine. She did have 2 incidents a fortnight ago, once where she jumped in the canal and couldn't get out, and I had to pull her out by her collar, and one where she jumped a fence chasing a bird and caused a car to brake sharply. It was a bad week! Would that have affected her? She seemed fine afterwards, a bit sheepish after the second incident, where she was told off for jumping the fence, but we've been doing a LOT of recall training since then and I've been amazed at how quickly she's picked it up. We did try when we first got her but she was just too crazily anxious and hyper to respond so we left it till she was more settled - which she is now, and I would say in the last 2 weeks her recall's gone from 25% to 90% .
I don't know, she seems a bit... depressed, and a bit stressed. I just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on how to put her at her ease again?