Sorry to bore you all but I first need to set the scene.  We (my little toy breed dog and 4 cats) have moved back to England after 6 years in Spain.  Early September our furniture (that which I was bringing back) got put into storage.  In October we went into a holiday rental for 3 weeks.  1st November we all arrived at our new home in England.  FOUR DAYS LATER the furniture eventually arrived (it got held up en route).  I have now managed to unpack most of the boxes and feel quite comfortable myself.  However my little dog, aged 7½ years, is still showing occasional signs of stress.  We have left a detached house in Spain and come to a ground-floor flat and can hear the people upstairs walking around and also thundering up and downstairs, although overall they are not noisy people.  I sometimes see my dog shaking/trembling for no obvious reason (other than overall stress).  He has not always been like this, only since the moving procedure began.  I have tried gently stroking/massaging him, which sometimes works, and also playing with him, which works whilst he is playing, but I really want him to feel more comfortable and unstressed in his new surroundings.  He is also very wary when meeting other dogs, although in Spain he had less of a problem with other dogs.  I try to keep the time he is left home along to a minimum but obviously it is sometimes necessary (for instance supermarket shopping etc).  What can I do to help him?  I hate to see him like this.  At night, as he has always done, he sleeps with me.  Oh, and he doesn´t like our little back garden here.  He prefers to go into the front garden for a quick pee whilst I wait and watch.   Any suggestions please?

Poor dog, he's not a happy boy, is he? It'd be worth trying either Zylkene or Calmex. We've had very good feedback about both of these products, and they're non-medical so quite safe.

No, he´s not a happy chappie so thanks for that.  I shall look into each and give one of them a go.

I'd try the zylkene first, calmex is aimed at one-off scary things such as car rides or fireworks and it sounds like your boy has more of a generalised stress problem so a maintenance calmer like zylkene would be better.  Or valerian tincture might help him.

It's been a massive change for him though, completely new environment and new social rules with other dogs, odd as it sounds - like us there is variation in their culture, how they approach other dogs etc.  For example I read an article a few years back about a woman bringing her two Kenyan born-and-raised dogs here, out there if a dog or a group of dogs runs over to another they are going to attack whereas here, it's more often play so her two were very much on the defensive for a while until they learned the ropes.

Poor you & poor dog.  It must be very stressful.  You could get a DAP diffuser to plug in and a DAP collar which gives off calming pheramones.  I would also get a crate and turn it into a wonderful cosy den somewhere quiet - but near you.  Cover it over so he can feel really safe when he goes there, and put snuggly bedding and especially a couple of ideally stinky T-shirts you have worn.  I think his senses are just overloaded and he is overwhelmed by the new situation.  It's not for nothing that moving is classed as very stressful - and you have moved countries to a very different environment.

Also perhaps if you could find a friend to walk with with a dog that is confident and yours gets on with - then he could be shown the ropes whilst having a friend on side.

Finally if he is very stressed you could try a Thundershirt which will swaddle him tightly and works to calm lots of dogs (eg; during thunder, or fireworks, or just to calm stressy dogs).

When he feels a bit better it might be a good idea to find an activity like agility for example which will help to build his confidence.

Good luck

Everyone's already given great advice, I'm just chipping in to tell you I had the same problem when we moved house, my dog at the time, Louie, went from a city dog to a country dog, and he really missed the city, odd I know, but there you go, that's GSD's for you, anyway, he did get better and was eventually very happy in his new life, it took about 5 months, but he was an exceptionally sensitive lad.
I'm sure your dog will settle soon enough.

I'd suggest you try the Zylkene and the Thundershirt - but also an Adaptil diffuser and collar. 

Thanks all.  I read up on both Calmex and Zylkene and had decided that Zylkene was the more appropriate for my lad so will definitely be trying it.  Unfortunately I´ve not managed to meet any other dog walkers to walk with on a regular basis.  I don´t know anyone at all in this area.  We do see a few dogs when we´re walking on the beach but everyone seems too busy to stop and talk and they are always going in the opposite direction to us.  Next time I have to leave him (tomorrow) I shall try getting his crate out of hibernation and give him a new bone too.  He does love his bones so maybe that will all help.
He did agility in his early years but went off that a few years ago.  I might try to find out if there´s a pet obedience club in the area though but for the socialisation, but he really doesn´t have a lot of need for training itself and I´m no longer interested in competition.

Did he go off it or did you?  I mean, would he still enjoy it?  Plenty of clubs do it for fun, it's a good entertainer and with the right approach (i.e. for fun, not with some trainers I've seen for whom competition is all and they can be quite harsh) can be a great stress release too :)

Or something like Rally-o or triebball (herding with gym balls) could be good too.  Both active and fun.

Nikita, we had to stop agility when my dog was only 18months old because we moved to Spain where there was no agility club.  By the time one did open up my dog seemed to have lost interest.  Maybe it was the weather, ground or just that too much time had gone by.  The trainer was lovely but overall I didn´t like the way the club was run so I stopped going.  I don´t think I would enjoy agility now unless I could be competitive again, and that won´t happen with this little dog.  I have just now been phoning around to see if I can find a pet obedience club in my area.  I thought that could be a starting point if only for a few weeks.  I do however remember that when my daughter moved out this way (she´s moved away now) that she gave up dog training because she couldn´t find anything close enough.

Look on the APDT site for clubs and events - I've found all sorts of good things there.  Rally-O might suit you well & it's growing extremely fast.  He's lucky to have such a caring & thoughtful owner.  I hope you find some friendly locals soon.

Just going back to the agility - just a fun class might be good.  Even if you aren't into it unless you can be competitive - it might be just the thing for him to improve confidence & self-esteem.

If you do fancy taking up agility again then look at the list of clubs on agilitynet. Hopefully there should be something in your area. Incidentally where are you?

The cheapest place that I found for zylkene and adaptil products was pet-drugs-online. I had good results with the adaptil collar and spray when I moved to a new area earlier this year.

I can empathise with the lack of friends in a new location.My husband left the RAF after 28 yrs service and I have moved house 18 times but have found this latest move into civvy street the hardest as apart from passing pleasantries in the park with fellow dog walkers I still feel like a newcomer.

I have joined a  new agility club and  have gone along to ringcraft   and feel that these have  helped me keep my sanity.

After lots of internet searching and several phone calls I´ve found a pet dog training place which also dabbles in agility.  The man who runs it has suggested I go along first without my dog to chat with him and see what they do etc.  It sounds promising.  I have also ordered some zylkene.  Hopefully my little lad will start to relax once we´ve managed to start with these ideas.  I love my little boy and want him to be the happy dog he always used to be.

Hope it all works out for you and your dog. Good luck.

one word for zylkene... brilliant!!

I´ve got the zylkene but not used it yet as I thought he was showing progress since I gave him a marrow bone the other day.  It was amazing how much diffference the bone made (he was used to having them in Spain but of course I couldn´t bring them back with me so had to wait till I could find somewhere over here to get them from).  Just knawing away at the bone had a good calming effect on him.  I´m trying him at a dog training class this week which involves a lot of socialising with other dogs.  He´s lost all his confidence so we´ll see if that helps.

:)

I hope the little chap gets back to his old self soon. It's so hard to see them upset and not know how to put it right.

I think he´s SLOWLY getting used to being here.  He still gets the shakes occasionally but nowhere near as badly or as frequently.  Also we have seen a couple of dogs out walking which we´d previously met and second and third time of meeting he´s less scared.  I shall start at a training class next week.  In the meantime, my daughter´s dog is having to live with us.  The two dogs were brought up together for the first year of their lives (6 years ago now) and, although they are not particularly interested in each other, I think my little one is happy not to be an only dog.

Quick update.  He´s back to normal now!!  I bought the Zylkene but have only used a few.  The biggest breakthrough was the marrowbone.  That worked wonders at home.  Then, very unexpectedly, my daughter´s dog had to come to live with us.  Two totally different dogs in every possible way but somehow after the first couple of days it seemed to help.  Sunny now enjoys meeting other small dogs on the beach and even occasionally tries to play with them.  He´s a little unsure of the bigger breeds but all the shaking has stopped, as has the feet chewing, and he´s back to being the little dog he always used to be.  Thanks everyone for your help, suggestions and advice.