I sent dogmeat to go and stay at the red rocket truck-stop while I traveled with Valentine. When I go back to get dogmeat, I'll call him and he hunkers down into that scared/whimper pose and then locks me into a conversation that gives me the choices "What did they want?" "glad to help" "looking for a fight" and something else..and then my game glitches and I can't target anything, pull weapons or use my pipboy..

he may have been damaged before you parted company. i have had similar problems with other sidekicks. after a battle they should heal. but if they "die" from falling, they don't heal. i guess to get around this make sure that a sidekick is healed before fast traveling. also save the game often in different save game files. as a lot of glitches can be corrected by restoring a save game file.

I've reverted to an older save file. I've lost a good four levels of gear/stats but I have dogmeat back...for now at least. Oh well it's all worth it.