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I have written before about our reactive, anxious dog. We have been working on behavior modification, and tiny improvements have been made. I took him to the vet for his vaccines last month, and he was horrible while there (he hadn't been in for about nine months prior). The vet asked a bunch of questions and diagnosed him with an anxiety disorder. His treatment plan had us putting him on l-theanine for a month and getting a dog trainer to help, then if no improvement, switch to Prozac. We are now at that point to switch him.
Has anyone done this? I know that we should not expect to see improvement for several weeks. I'm afraid that there will be side effects, but at this point, his quality of life (and our quality of life!) is suffering, so I don't think there's any other option...
One of my dogs had some bad aggression issues when I rescued him. We got a wonderful trainer who helped a lot but he still had a tendency to get really anxious and unpredictable when men were around.
It just so happened that he had to have surgery and was given trazodone to keep him calm as he healed. Well, this turned out to be his miracle drug. The anxious behaviors he exhibited before all but disappeared. Granted, he's a bulldog so he's not all that active to begin with but he didn't become less active or "dopey" after taking the meds. He's been on them for 2 years now with no other signs of side effects.
Good luck with your pup!
Last edited by Mom2Bulldogs; 02-11-2016 at 08:51 AM..
Reason: typo
I have written before about our reactive, anxious dog. We have been working on behavior modification, and tiny improvements have been made. I took him to the vet for his vaccines last month, and he was horrible while there (he hadn't been in for about nine months prior). The vet asked a bunch of questions and diagnosed him with an anxiety disorder. His treatment plan had us putting him on l-theanine for a month and getting a dog trainer to help, then if no improvement, switch to Prozac. We are now at that point to switch him.
Has anyone done this? I know that we should not expect to see improvement for several weeks. I'm afraid that there will be side effects, but at this point, his quality of life (and our quality of life!) is suffering, so I don't think there's any other option...
Good job! It takes time and great patience to work with a fearful reactive dog. Remember that these baby steps are huge steps for the dog; they require that the dog have an extraordinary amount of trust in you as well as requiring an enormous amount of courage on the dog's part.
Yes, I would absolutely try the prozac. It won't in and of itself resolve your pup's issues, so keep working on the behavioral modification, but that said, the prozac should provide enough relief that it bridges the gap between his fears and the learning process.
You might find Debbie Jacobs' website on fearful dogs to be helpful; she has made huge strides with her fearful dog Sunny. Here is her website: Fearfuldogs.com
Okay, the vet said he'd have the meds available today for pickup. One question, though: Next weekend we are going away for the weekend (it's unavoidable and it's not an option for one of us to stay home with him, as it is for a previous commitment; if it were possible, I would just stay here). We will have a dog sitter who Loki knows coming to stay in the house with him. Because I know the dosage might need to be fiddled with and so on, should we wait the week before starting the new medication, until we get back? Or will it take long enough to have an effect that we can just go ahead and start (the sitter would only need to give him one dose while we are gone)?
I have a grayhound/lab cross, adopted just over a year ago at age 7.5, with pretty severe separation anxiety. Left in the house he was destructive, left outside he worked hard to dig under some chain link fencing and go running around. I'm retired and home a lot of the time but when gone he could not handle it. He still experiences some stress when I'm gone but he's not suffering the way he had been and can cope for the generally short times I'm gone, usually no more than 4 hours.
My vet started him on 20 mg Prozac and it helped but taking him up to 40 mg per day really did the trick. It takes several weeks for the meds to build up in his system so I think you can and should start him ASAP.
Now that he has had some time to learn that "I'll Be Home Soon" (using Patricia McConnell's little book) I've been considering taking him back down to 20 mg to see if that is now enough.
I have a grayhound/lab cross, adopted just over a year ago at age 7.5, with pretty severe separation anxiety. Left in the house he was destructive, left outside he worked hard to dig under some chain link fencing and go running around. I'm retired and home a lot of the time but when gone he could not handle it. He still experiences some stress when I'm gone but he's not suffering the way he had been and can cope for the generally short times I'm gone, usually no more than 4 hours.
My vet started him on 20 mg Prozac and it helped but taking him up to 40 mg per day really did the trick. It takes several weeks for the meds to build up in his system so I think you can and should start him ASAP.
I hope you are all doing better very soon.
Someone posted an article here about canine separation anxiety and behavioral modifications for it a couple of weeks ago. My Great Danes have separation anxiety as well. Danes are a clingy, needy breed and always want to be near their owners, so they have this problem more than most breeds. I think separation anxiety is worse in dogs whose owners are home a lot; the dogs get accustomed to owners being at home so much they don't get a chance to dealing with being home alone. I was going to try some of these strategies when I noticed the problem disappearing on its own. By this time, after not working since before I had owned both dogs, I had worked at my new part time job for a year, and the dogs got used to Mommy leaving the house all day, but learned to reassure themselves that she would come back. If you want to try some behavioral strategies as an adjunct treatment or an alternative, here is the article. I have heard from other Dane owners that these really help.
Okay, the vet said he'd have the meds available today for pickup. One question, though: Next weekend we are going away for the weekend (it's unavoidable and it's not an option for one of us to stay home with him, as it is for a previous commitment; if it were possible, I would just stay here). We will have a dog sitter who Loki knows coming to stay in the house with him. Because I know the dosage might need to be fiddled with and so on, should we wait the week before starting the new medication, until we get back? Or will it take long enough to have an effect that we can just go ahead and start (the sitter would only need to give him one dose while we are gone)?
If you trust your pet sitter to continue giving the meds while you are gone, I would start him now.
With anxious reactive dogs, anything you can do to build confidence will be a game changer. One thing is to help your dog understand that HE has control over what happens- for instance, start with capturing desired behavior- if he randomly sits (no command/cue given) toss him a tiny treat away from him so that he has to get up to get the treat, when he sits again, repeat; do the same to reinforce any desired behavior that he does without being asked. He will figure out that when he (voluntarily) sits/lays down/spins, etc that he gets a treat. This does mean however that you need to keep a stash of tiny treats in convenient (but safe) places around the house
We have done the box exercise before. He loves it, and sometimes we play, "where is your Kong?" where I stack up several boxes and he has to find his favorite toy in one of the boxes. When he sees a box, he gets excited. He has no/very little fear in the house with the family; it's when we go outside. Indoors, his obedience is good; he will sit, lay down, roll over, high five, etc, on command and sometimes even not on command if he wants a cookie or thinks that what we are having for dinner looks good. Looking out the window with the window open, he will bark, but not lose control, if he sees another dog or if a FedEx truck stops in front of the house. I can generally tell him to go get his Kong and play a game of catch to distract him in that case. Outside, though, those same triggers cause a total meltdown and he won't eat a chunk of steak/chicken/hot dog/whatever, and he's on high alert for any potential trigger... ears going every which way, shifty eyes, pacing, panting, barking, lunging, foaming at the mouth. We have no idea what has caused this behavior, as he was fine when we got him at 4 months of age from a rescue organization (his litter and the mom were dumped outdoors when the pups were about four weeks old) and his neurotic behaviors have just gotten progressively worse from about the age of 10 months on (he's 18 months now).
Oddly enough, he was afraid of the trainer from the moment she walked in the door the first time. Normally he's all over people trying to get their attention, but he took one look/sniff of her and backed up and was slinking around barking and teeth chattering. I don't know if it was how she smelled (not noticeable to me, of course, but she does work with dogs and he could probably smell other dogs on her) or the fact that she didn't even glance at him when she walked in and he thought that she was shady, or what. At the end of that session, they were friends, and he was wagging his tail and checking out her bag of tricks, but it was such a strange reception for him!
We are just three days in and my dog seems jumpier than usual... Is this something to report to the vet, or just typical of the settling-in period?
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