How to help an extremely anxious dog calm down?

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Our 2 year old rescue has been with us for 6 months.
I know in the grand scheme of things this is not a long time at all but he has huge, huge anxiety issues.
It isn’t just one thing, literally everything causes him stress and anguish.
This is due to his awful start in life. He was locked in a crate (from 7 weeks), all day, every day without any walks, socialising or seeing anything of the world outside of the flat he lived in (I also suspect he was badly treated in other ways).
Even pooping causes him anxiety as he tries to run off afterwards!
So that was the first year of his life.
The second year was spent in a rescue kennel with 40 other dogs (it was very noisy with dogs barking 24/7). He was then rehomed but returned 3 months later because the people could not handle his anxious behaviour. In September last year, he came to live with us.
We hired a behavioural expert and try to do everything she suggested. We keep his world small, keep his days quiet with a nice routine etc.
He is such a lovely dog and we adore him but his anxiety levels are still so high, it gives him diarrhoea every day and makes him vomit. Even if he does settle, it doesn’t take much to set him off again (like the neighbours banging a door shut or their dogs barking etc). He is VERY vocal and barks a lot.
Some days are much worse than others. Some days nothing seems to bring him down from such a high state of anxiety.
The vet says they aren’t keen to give him any prescribed anti anxiety meds but I have spent a small fortune on all the alternatives and so far nothing has helped. I have tried Plug ins, calming collars, lots of different natural calming tablets, probiotics but they just upset his tummy even more. He is on a high protein, no grain diet (as per the behavioural experts advise).
Hopefully, in a year or two, with a consistent calming and gentle routine he will start to settle but I won’t lie, it’s very hard work. Our lives have also had to become very small too as he is too anxious to travel, go to other peoples homes etc.

I had hoped the vet could prescribe a calming med on a low dose to help him but they really are not keen to do so.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Anything which I haven’t yet tried? It must be such hard work being him, poor thing.

Thanks everyone. We’ve ordered him some lower protein but still grain free food. I’ll try him on some CBD oil firstly but if no luck we will find a vet who will be able to prescribe some anti anxiety meds……fingers crossed!

Our springer was much like your dog but we've had him from 10wk old from the breeder and he's never been traumatised. However we realised his anxiety and poor behaviour was linked to stomach upsets which we traced to chicken. We also got the implant. 2 months later and he's a different dog. So I'd try a chicken free diet and the implant. If no real change after 2 months find a different vet.

Just to add none of the natural calming supplements worked but pre/Pro biotic paste worked wonders

Thanks RedBonnet we tend not to give him chicken as it also used to upset our other dog. Can I ask what is the implant you talk of? What probiotic paste do you use, I have had a few people tell me to try that?

All these poor, unhappy dogs. As a country we need to seriously rethink what is going on, there are hundreds of thousands of them.

Dog rescues are not helping the dogs, just perpetuating this awful life.

Dog rescues aren't helping dogs?

Do fuck off dear.

carriedout In some ways, I do kind of understand what you are saying.
I am on a fb group for aggressive dogs and dogs with behavioural issue. They are all saying that they are seeing unprecedented numbers of dogs with aggression/issues and this is most definitely down to the huge increase in back yard and unscrupulous breeders. People with little or no breeding experience who are just out to make a quick buck.
Sadly, people don’t do their research and go on to purchase puppies from breeders with good backgrounds. They see a cute pup online and just go for it. Lockdown has also done detrimental damage to pups who were not able to socialise in the proper way and spent far too long with just a few people every day. These then grow into young dogs with issues, the people then can not handle them and dump them off to the rescues. The people who run rescue centres are wonderful human beings with only kindness in their visions but they are taking on these poor damage creatures and passing them on to other kind hearted people who just want to give these poor dogs a kind and loving home but sometimes the damage is very deep and hard to change.
Many behavioural experts are all saying the same and in all their years of work this is becoming a huge problem and they are seeing more and more bite issues. The rescues are doing a great job but they are just taking these poor bubbas in and then handing them back on to people without giving them much support/training etc (Maybe not all but sadly this has been our experience).
I don’t know what the future is for our poor rescue, we love him dearly but he is so much hard work, with many issues. He has been let down so badly by humans and we don’t want to be another lot that have given up on him but I do fear for his future. We don’t have a bottomless pot of money to keep throwing at vets and behavioural experts. Non of these things come cheap.
All of the rescue centres in this country are full to bursting, where are all of these poor dogs going to end up especially if people keep on purchasing puppies from these awful breeders. The government need to step in and create some laws against backyard breeding.