Advice Please- Anxiety & Meds

[calico]

Our pup was diagnosed with seperation anxiety a year ago by the vet her last owners used and given a prozac perscription. When we adopted her, the shelter had continued giving her the meds, but did not know if her anxiety was causing her to be destructive or self-mutilate before she was medicated.

I'm taking her to the vet for a check-up tomorrow and I'm going to ask the vet to change the meds b/c the prozac does not seem to be doing anything for her seperation anxiety. We bought her a thundershirt, and that seems to have made a greater impact on her anxiety than the meds.

For those of you who have pets with anxiety, how bad was journey to find a med or med combo that worked? Since we don't have any idea what she was like before the prozac, I'm a little worried how changing is going to affect her. Right now she's on 20mg/twice daily and is about 55 lbs. She isn't destructive. Her only signs of anxiety right now is that she might whine slightly or start shaking when we get ready to leave.

ETA- I keep going back and forth, but sometimes I just want to take her off the Prozac and just use the Thundershirt. I feel like I'm wasting money and giving her medication that isn't doing anything, so why do it?

[straymo]

I hope I can be of some help. My Lily had severe separation anxiety when we found her as a stray. She was a mess and I cried many a tear over her. To keep this short, we tried a ton of things and different meds before Prozac. It took about a month, but it worked. We were then able to work on behavior modification. She can still have bad days if her schedule gets upset. Change is hard for her.

She is at the highest dose for her weight and she gets her pill 2x a day. We tried to lower the dosage and it did not go well.

This last year I was unemployed and then when back to work. She did not handle the change well at all. We again tried a lot of things to get her "right" and ended up having to add a med, Trazadone. She did well on the added med. Apparently some dogs level out too much on prozac and need a little extra. Lily is one dog who likely will never be off meds.

We do also use the Thundershirt when necessary, but we have to anticipate and put it on her BEFORE her anxiety gets going. We also give her Rescue Remedy for various stresses as well. She's "special" and always will be. Lily's been on Prozac for 4 years and Trazadone for 6 months.

I hope that helps.

[calico]

Thank you guys for sharing your experiences and information. It helped me a lot. Straymo, the triggers that you mentioned are interesting and made me think. I've been trying to figure out her triggers since we got her, but there really isn't a pattern. However, my DH has been unemployed since Jan. and I have noticed that she is getting a little more attached to him than she was. I imagine that Kai is going to be a mess when he goes back to work.

We went to the vet yesterday and our vet recommended switching to clomipramine. Today, we stop giving her the prozac for 7 days to let it flush out of her system and then we start easing her on the clomipramine. I felt a lot better about switching her to a different med b/c DH will be around to monitor her and knowing that there are things we can give her during the transition period.

Fivedogs- that's a great idea about a behavior chart. I hadn't thought about it, since right now she isn't destructive- just shakes and wimpers sometimes. I will heavily consider getting her to a vet behaviorist if we can't get her anxiety under control with this switch.

I just want my sweetheart to be happy and have a good life with us.

[Seesaw]

May 23, 2012 12:01:15 GMT -5 calico said:

..... right now she isn't destructive- just shakes and wimpers sometimes. .....
I just want my sweetheart to be happy and have a good life with us.

I had a dog with severe separation anxiety. He would destroy and crap on everything and do whatever it took to escape when he was left alone . He has broken several windows and even jumped from a second story building to get out to try to "find" us when we left. He didn't care if he was at grandmas or with other dogs to play with. If his daddy was gone, he wanted out. He chewed through fencing multiple times and cut his face up to escape. We never thought of medicating him. He never came back after one of his escapes. We assume he got hit by a car since his tags always got him home before. Now I feel bad that we never thought of drugs to keep him calm and safe. The vet never suggested it. He was such a great and smart dog except when left alone.

Your dog does not currently seem to have extreme enough symptoms to warrant medicating imho, but I'm no vet or behaviorist. All of my dogs and cats know the signs when we're packing the suitcase to stay somewhere overnight. They show they don't like it and want to come with us, but don't hurt themselves, destroy things or crap everywhere. It sounds like your dog used to self-mutilate though, so maybe the meds are necessary to prevent that. The advice you've gotten about the chart and weaning off the meds to see if they're helping, even trying other meds, seems really good and sound. Good luck with it. Let us know what ends up working for your dog please, so we know.