Running Away to Feel Better

Stevie sticks to me around the house and in the unfenced yard. Going from house to fence has never been an issue. This week he has "taken off" three or four times, deaf to me, intensely involved in sniffing, around the neighbor's house, totally out of the norm behavior for him in our home environment.

Coincidentally, he has also been unwell, sporadic diarrhea, an episode of repetitive vomiting, and at times appearing totally normal, and other times obviously lackluster. Last night he also had urinary urgency, he seems to have been consuming lots of snow.

I suspect his extreme sniffing is self-soothing or escapist behavior. The adrenalin rush that accompanies the sniffing and hunting behavior eases his physical discomfort. He's a smart doggie and he's repeated it for some relief.

I wonder if this could also be applied to a family that asked me about their English Pointer, who instantly took off and always seemed to need to be outside and whined constantly. Now you could say "typical pointer" but I would want to look into physical discomfort (whether structural or systemic such as thyroid imbalance or auto-immune) as a driver for the behavior because their description of it was so extreme and consistent. Was the only time this dog had comfort for his physical ills when he was self-medicating with adrenalin?