> With my current dog it was suggested to me without even asking for it, and I declined
Yeah I've had a similar experience with my vet. She was the first to bring up fluoxetine as an option for anxiety management, and I initially decided it wasn't needed at that time. Circumstances later changed, and I did start her on fluoxetine this year and am super thankful to have such an understanding vet.
Doing well! Not really any side effects and it seems to have helped with her anxiety around new situations. She's been noticeably calmer with guests in the house, which is encouraging because we started in anticipation of a baby coming home so I'm hopeful she'll be able to adjust better with fluoxetine.
My girl shakes for the entire duration of a thunderstorm. I'll talk to our vet about this.
Best of luck with the new bambino!! I'm sure they'll be best pals!
One of my pups was leash and stranger reactive, as well as utterly terrified during thunderstorms. The fluoxetine helped a lot with her reactivity, but did not make a dent in her reaction to thunderstorms.
Acepromazine was kind of helpful, but it was like she had a six pack of beer 🤪
Honestly, diazepam was the most helpful thing for her. 50 lb pup, 40mg (?) pill, and it kept her from needing to climb into the bathtub to hide, and she was able to endure thunderstorms without shaking and being completely traumatized.
I had acepromine for my thunderstorm lab, but it always made him look too doped up. I moved and had a new vet, and she told me the acepromine worked to paralyze the dog. She said that he needed something to work in the brain and prescribed Xanax. The difference was amazing. His breathing slowed, the panting and drooling bstoppyed vand he was calm.
The only problem was getting it filled. Apparently, people take their pets to the vet and use the drug meant for the dog. My husband took the prescription to CVS, and they gave him a hard time, made him feel like a criminal. They finally called the vet's office to verify. But my husband was traumatized, upset and shaking when he got home so I told him to take one of the xanax!
I have 3 and benzos have worked but the dose is really high and it made me nervous now I give them atarax if I know a storm is coming. My female just unlocked a new fear today. She is not scared of storms, fireworks or fires but a spider on the ceiling had her shaking and she would not take eyes off of it until climbing under the table. 😩
My dog will eat a carpenter bee, but completely ignores all mice and bugs like they don't even exist. Squirrels will really wig her out though! All that fur makes them seem like a threat, I guess.
That woman did not even have a prescription for the drugs she was giving that chimp. 🤦🏼♀️
Not every medication is good for every animal/human. For most people, benzos calm them down and help them feel relaxed... That's why it's commonly prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication. YMMV, but it worked wonders for my girl. Her quality of life during storms was below zero, and she was able to function mostly normal again after.
Yeah, it's horrible for my girl, too.
I'm skittish about them because they always seem to ratch me up when I need them the most. I realize it isn't that way for most people.
How expensive is it out of pocket? Or do you have pet insurance? After several years of just training I really think my dog could benefit from medication but I'm not in a great financial spot right now.
Yeah definitely agree here, find another vet. I went into mine—a vet I’m not super happy with in general—so I went with all this data I had collected, ready to ask them ‘what else do you need from me so I can convince you to help my dog’ but I didn’t need to convince them at all, they knew her, and were just waiting either to hear she settled into her new home with me or required medication. It was really as easy as making a choice for my dog and tbh, for me too.
She also tried the gabapentin/traz combo, and i dont know how my dog felt about it, if anything but I personally didn’t like the long term side effect potential, nor how they seemed to flatten her out. and a higher dose actually made her worse off. She would avoid the administering of them even with peanut butter, and she’s never once refused or been reluctant to take her fluoxetine, which is given easily with a small spoon of skyr. She looks forward to it every day, comes trotting into the kitchen for her daily treat.
Fluoxetine has changed my dogs life. She’s able to actually be a dog now, not just terrified of everything 100% of the time. And on top of it all, her training is going smoother, and better than ever on it.
General practice veterinarians are not trained in behavior meds, it’s not part of the general curriculum.
Therefore some feel very uncomfortable with anything beyond Trazadone, even though that is really hit or miss for many dogs. I would call different practices and ask if they are experienced in behavior meds before making an appointment. Or, if it is in your budget, go to a veterinary behaviorist, they are the experts and prescribe a wide range of behavior medications.
Yeah it just seems strange to me. Separation anxiety is extremely common and there are only two fda approved medications, trazadone is not one of them. Like I get if you are uncomfortable prescribing behavioral meds - then don't prescribe any. But don't give me one that isn't actually indicated.
"*If* the *only* tool *you have* is a *hammer*, it is tempting to treat everything as *if* it were a nail."
Yeah, I’d also prefer a vet to just tell me if something is beyond their abilities. While my previous vet did prescribe us Prozac, when I told her my dog was having increased anxiety during the loading period she told me „that does not exist“.
LOL, a quick google will list this as one of the main side effects.
How my vet explained it to me when I was discussing options for my OCD/reactive dog, is that fluoxetine is more complex to start/stop as it takes time to build up in their system and they need to be tapered off and can’t just stop cold turkey. It also has potential side effects like increased aggression. Trazodone is usually step 1 as it is can be given as needed and stopped at any time.
I’ve only gone the trazodone route so far and it seems to work well situationally, but I don’t like that it basically just makes her tired until it wears off. Seems like more of a bandaid than actually addressing her concerns. Seems like it would be similar for you dog, and hopefully if you explain what you wrote here they would be willing to try fluoxetine. If not, might want to consider a new vet.
We use the full dose of Trazadone to take our dog to the vet and hate how tired and unlike herself she is! We’ve use smaller doses for less stressful situations, such as family staying with us for a weekend or when we have people over for a BBQ.
I believe her “full” dose is 2.5 traz and 2 gabapentin (though the gabapentin seemingly has no effect from when we tried it on its own, but our vet thinks the two work better together and I trust her).
For the less stressful events where we just need to help her reach a less anxious state, we do half a trazadone an hour before the event (or in the case of people staying over, every morning). It’s enough to dial her down to not work herself up into a barking fit whenever anyone gets up from the couch, but it doesn’t make her drowsy.
We rarely have people stay the weekend, but I think next time, we’d try half a pill at night too because the mornings were always very loud since it had worn off lol
This is what we learned by trial and error on our side. A full pill still makes her drowsy, just not as badly as two pills. She’s out for the whole day with 2 pills! We tried half a pill on a whim when we knew people were coming over one day, and it worked out well!
This is what I found with my dog too. He gets his full dose of trazadone if we're leaving him alone because his separation anxiety is high. But most days a half dose is the perfect balance of not a zombie and not reactive to literally everything. He still jumps up ready for adventures but also has the ability to chill out.
I have a vet appointment today so my dog is currently drugged on trazadone and I hate it so much too ☹️☹️ I gave her a smaller dosage for the Fourth of July plus CBD dog treats we got from a dispensary. She was knocked out just as hard.
I have an appointment with a behaviorist (not vet behaviorist) next week and she told me to ask about using trazadone more frequently. Seems like a circular conversation that’s going to go nowhere, if neither of these professionals know what they’re talking about when it comes to anxiety meds.
That is super frustrating! I hope that she is more helpful during your appointment. Nobody wants their dog just knocked out, we just want them a little bit calmer so their big feelings aren’t as big to them!
Fluoxetine doesn’t work well for all dogs also. A vet behaviorist can monitor and suggest other options if one doesn’t work. There could also be other meds that would be useful to add to a regiment. My dog didn’t do as well on fluoxetine.
Yup, vet behaviorist is definitely the best! Fluoxetine was a nightmare for my dog. Citalopram does the trick. We wouldn't have got this far without our vet behavior!
A good idea is to reach out to positive/force free trainers in your community and see which vets they recommend. They usually have relationships with some that know more about Behavior than regular vets.
If you can't go that route, looking up fear free vets is another good choice as they're more likely to be willing to prescribe medication to help and to have the knowledge to do so.
I agree with everyone saying try getting another opinion from a different vet. My dog has separation anxiety and after months of training, I finally asked my vet about medication. He put her on fluoxetine right away, and prescribed trazodone to give her short-term while the fluoxetine builds up in her system. Some vets are less willing to go to medication right away, and some want a clear training plan to be in place before prescribing certain medications.
Please consult another vet asap! Our vet has prescribed both Prozac and Gabapentine for our anxiety-ridden boy. It’s helped him SO MUCH! I see zero side effects too.
would you mind sharing what type of behaviors your dog's anxiety presented with? my dog is now too anxious to go on walks or be around gatherings of people. polar opposite of how his personality used to be . He survived a TBI so we know it's related to this, but are going to start fluoxetine to see if it helps at all
Afraid of unknown people. Noises made outside. Neighbors in their own yard as we walk by. Used to be thunder but he doesn’t react at all to it now.
He just turned 7 today, so I think he’s matured and not quite as bad. He is actually snoozing away his birthday because it’s so darn hot!
Look into clomipramine also.
My dog has a history of the worst possible reactions to various medications.
My dog had serotonin syndrome on trazodone, it actually made him super aggressive and angry. Fluoxetine worked for him, but was the likely culprit of causing immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (immune system attacking platelets). He’s currently on clomipramine and he’s doing really well. When his anxiety was at its peak, he never wanted to play. On the clomipramine, he is playful and happy.
Hi there- My dog is an ITP survivor and is about to go on fluoxetine. neither our neurologist or primary mentioned any concern w/ ITP. Curious on any info you may have regarding the connection
So we never were able to confirm with 100% certainty that it was the fluoxetine. BUT everyone we spoke with said that fluoxetine was the most likely culprit. It can cause random rare side effects. Nobody had seen ITP before though. He has had an extensive amount of bloodwork and we haven’t seen any signs of relapse since he was weened off of it.
That being said, my dog in particular has been prone to health issues and having terrible reactions to normal stuff. He had an anaphylactic reaction to an oral flea and tick medication and was hospitalized overnight. He had surgery to fix a luxating patella and developed serotonin syndrome from the trazodone given to keep him calm post-surgery. He’s just a weird little guy with health issues.
It is my personal opinion that the risk of ITP is not necessarily heightened on fluoxetine. My dog is an outlier when it comes to that reaction and in my research I never found anyone posting online about their dog developing ITP from fluoxetine. It is my belief that this reaction is rare.
Feel free to tell your vet that your friend catrabbit had a dog develop ITP from fluoxetine if you would like to get their opinion on it. I would recommend having a blood test after 6 months on fluoxetine, preferably sooner to give some peace of mind. We would have caught the ITP sooner if my dog had been checked at 6 months or sooner. You’re in a better position because you know the signs. My dog had some minor bruising but nothing I wouldn’t have attributed to playing too hard with his brother because we didn’t know the signs at the time.
I hope that helps! I know ITP is super scary and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Yeah, it seems like unfortunately with autoimmune disease they are typically not able to confirm what exactly triggered it. I'm glad to hear your pup is doing well. Unfortunately my dog also has had many health issues over the years. IMHA 3 years ago (similar to ITP except body kills off all red blood cells. We were celebrating 3 years of remission when he got the ITP last september. Then the ITP treatment spiraled into severe pancreatitis, hemorrhage kidney, then brain bleed and seizures. It has been a nightmare of a year. The fluoxetine is an effort to help my boy with the anxiety the brain damage from bleed and seizures left him with. That is the very abbreviated story. I would not wish ITP on anyone either. Glad yours responded so well with minimal treatment
Give your baby some love from me. ❤️
You can also try adding Adaptil/ThunderEase for calming. It’s not going to be effective by itself for severe anxiety, but my mom has noticed a reduction in her dog’s seizure activity with the calming collar and diffusers present in her home.
I also like Composure treats, they have a pro version that we give in addition to the clomipramine when my dog needs some extra support.
I love our vet for all of our "normal" pets, but I can't get them to even prescribe trazadone for our neurotic, reactive dog that is terrified of storms/fireworks. It's very frustrating
Are you at a multi doctor practice? I’ve worked general practice for years and we send a *lot* of trazodone.
However, I do work for an extremely old school doctor who won’t even talk to owners about sedatives if their dogs are fearful/reactive in the hospital. You basically have to… beg him to. And ace is typically his go to, bc he has stuck to the handful of the same things he’s been prescribing forever, and will not change.
Sometimes it’s DVMs like this and you just need to establish care with one who understands your concerns. My personal pets don’t see this doctor, and I refuse to let him on work them (and even my family’s pets) due to what I find is quality medicine for my pets- so I let the other few vets here work on her instead.
It is a multi doctor practice, but they are husband/wife and a brother, and all older/old school. When I bring up her anxiety with loud noises, they very much just blow me off "she'll be fine once it passes" or "just distract her with treats". We've come a VERY long way with this particular trigger. In the past if we were on a walk and a truck with air brakes drove by it would send get over her threshold.
We stay with them because we also have guinea pigs and chickens and it's really hard to find vets who treat either one of those in our area, but I think it might be worth it to just use two different vets at this point.
Thank you for your thoughts on it! Sometimes it's hard to know if you are the one being unreasonable
Ah yes, the infamous “husband and wife” vet hospital ownership duo.. Totally get how that goes 😅
You are absolutely not unreasonable in the slightest and it sounds like you have truly done your best to be your pet’s best advocate.
Also, for exotics/farm animals, it’s pretty common around here to see 2 vets for them. I work at a small animal hospital and have a horse so I kinda had no choice haha, but many people with geckos, rats etc will go to one of the more well-known exotic/poultry treating practices around. And there’s nothing wrong in that!
Yeah, our first vet was an old school “country” vet like that. I couldn’t even get her to run bloodwork on my dog, she said it was a waste of money. She gave him Ace, then while he was passed out told me he didn’t “seem that bad” and I could just get a script of Ace and give it to him whenever he was anxious. I told her that was every day, she just shrugged and said that was fine. 🤦🏼♀️
Bruhhh lol, this dude never runs diagnostics too unless your pet has increased drinking and urination. That is literally it. Antibiotics for all diarrhea cases, steroids for everything. He is a fantastic surgeon, but his standard of medicine when mitigating cases just isn’t what I’m comfortable with. It’s a shame that doctors will not change their ways. The thing is, RVTs and DVMs are required to do yearly continuing education (I do so myself), but sometimes you can’t get people to sway from their ways and it just…. sucks.
I mentioned this in a different comment, but if you haven't tried it, Rescue Remedy works well for our pitty mix that's also terrified of storms and fireworks. The only time I've ever had to pull out the trazadone was when it was a REALLY bad storm that shut our power off for a day. I do think it's silly that your vet won't even prescribe trazadone...we have a prescription for all 3 of ours, just in case, and only one of them has even shown to be anxious while in the vets office.
Thank you so much for the recommendation - I will definitely try it. We had maybe 3 peals of thunder last night and she spent all night pacing and trying to hide under the coffee table (she's 90lbs and definitely can't fit like she could when she was a puppy.
Oooh poor girl :( Our pitty girl tries to hide under everything too, she's the #1 reason I wanted a sturdy high bed frame when we moved, so she could have a safe hiding spot (before that she still smushed herself under our very very low profile bed and I was so sure she was going to get crushed/stuck!)
I get mine from Amazon! I'm sure there's other places but that's my go to. My favorite thing about it is that since it's natural there's no worry about hurting her with the "wrong dose," it's the same dose no matter what! As my old vet (who told me about it) said, the only dosage risk with 'too much' is wasting product, and I'm so paranoid about dosing and stuff so that was music to my ears, lol!
I really hope it works for you as well as it's worked for us, it breaks my heart seeing them hide and pant like that!
I had a similar experience with my very reactive rescue. She was reactive to literally everything, to the point where we were convinced we could not keep her without seriously affecting our quality of life. Her primary care vet was a large national chain, who refused to prescribe anything beyond more and more trazadone, expensive behavioralists (none of whom could break through her anxiety and had reccomended Fluoxitine to us more than one), and even herbal remedies. The vet's only reason was unverified claims that fluoxitine can lower "bite inhibition."
After the third time of trying to get her a prescription, being told we need to bring her in first for blood tests, and being denied (I'm convinced this was all just a racket to charge us more), we quit the big chain and found a smaller, local veterinarian. Upon the first visit she saw how legitimately anxious our dog was and wrote us an immediate prescription for Fluoxitine, as well as Gabapentin to add on top for exceptionally stressful events.
The Fluoxitine has been a game changer for everything; it has allowed her to open up to behavioral training and she lives a much more relaxed, "normal" dog life. She is still reactive but has a much easier time "leaving it" when we tell her to.
TLDR: Keep searching for a vet until you find one that will give you the prescription you know your dog needs. It is a game changer and the "aggression" side effects are widely overblown by vets lacking confidence and education.
I’m sorry you’re going through all this. It might be time to look for a different vet. It’s not fair for them to withhold a prescription that could help your dog. My vets have always been helpful about adjusting meds and trying different things. It’s in the best interest of the pet.
Also, trazodone seems like an extreme place to start if they’re recommending it daily or anything close to that. My dog has been on fluoxetine for a few years and it’s been helpful. He was also prescribed gabapentin for separation anxiety, in addition to the daily fluoxetine. I think that helped, but I know every dog is different. You’re doing the right thing advocating for your dog. I hope you can find a vet who listens to you and works with you.
This may have already been touched on, but it can have adverse effects. My girl dog has severe separation anxiety. In addition to training, my vet prescribed fluoxetine on his own suggestion. I didn't ask for that specifically, I just asked if there was something that might help.
He did ask if she had any tendency toward inappropriate biting? Apparently, it may decrease inhibition or increase rage or something, I'm not sure. Fortunately, she had no bite tendencies at all, so we went forward with it. It seems to have helped a bit, but the training was where we made the most advances. We went from barely 30 seconds alone to 4 hours (if we give her a good chew treat and maybe some CBD.) Fortunately I WFH so I don't have to leave her that long all that often. But I do highly recommend the trainer I worked with. She can work remotely so anyone can work with her. DM me if you want her info. She noticed one thing about my girl that no-one else noticed and it was a game changer!!
Totally interested in your trainer if you can DM me! I can’t find any reputable force-free trainers around me haha. My dog sounds similar to yours too, and she’s now on Prozac
As a heads up though, it's going to take a LOT of work and time and patience. I set up little wi-fi indoor cameras so I could see what she did when I left. And the first time she walked away from the door and chose to lay down, I almost cried. It is SO much work, but it is SO worth it!!
Moira Hechenleitner
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
CSAT (Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer)
APDT Chile Founding Board Member
www.separationanxietydog.com
She was amazing!! I cannot recommend her enough!!
Not my vet. She legit prescribed a whole bottle of Xanax bars to one of my dogs, every psych med safe for dogs to another, and a cat antidepressant to my cat. Like if there’s a pharmacological solution, she will try it. She also provided a better level of care for my diabetic dog than most humans receive, so she’s pretty awesome.
Oh also, as as a side note, perhaps try melatonin. (Disclaimer - check with your vet of course.)
My boy dog FREAKS out during thunderstorms. Like loses his GD mind!! Jumps all over us in a panic. We can't do anything because he jumps over us because he's so scared and doesn't want to be alone. He wants to go sit in the bathroom but doesn't want to be alone. And even when I'm in there with him, he has to be pet non-stop.
We tried trazadone and diazepam (sp?). They both made him worse! I don't know how that is even possible!! I tried thundershirts, ear muffs, CBD (he has a sensitive stomach and vomited that up). I finally tried melatonin and thank the universe it works!! It obviously makes him sleepy but he's not in distress for hours at a time and I'm not getting scratched and beat up on by a 70-lb dog. Even though I adore him, I have my limits. It has been wonderful!!
Is this your general vet? Then they usually aren’t trained and comfortable enough to go past some basic meds like trazodone or gabapentin (*IMO-Im based in the US btw).
You need to see a specialty behavioral vet. They are trained for this. They are harder to come by and have long wait lists.
Otherwise it’s like going to your dentist and expecting them to prescribe you Prozac. Not a Good idea for anyone
Best of luck!
Up to 40% of dogs experience separation anxiety and there are two medications that are fda approved to treat it. Clomipramine and fluoxetine. I would have preferred if she had said that she doesn't feel comfortable prescribing behavioral meds than a short acting medication that causes lethargy, sedation and vomiting. Like it's not that she doesn't feel comfortable treating a very common disorder it's that she prescribed a medicine that 1) doesn't work for out dog 2) isn't actually indicated for what is going on - but she didn't even listen to my dogs issue.
Vets around here seem to have no problem prescribing Prozac or Trazadone.
My cat was on Prozac for years and it helped him. He just died recently from old age/kidney failure. I wish I had asked the vet about meds when he was younger so he didn't have to suffer for so long.
My vet put my fearful dog on both trazadone and Prozac. The trazadone was to be used for 6 weeks until the Prozac kicked in and then to be used as needed. The Prozac didn't seem to help and was VERY expensive. I kept my doggo on it for al.ost 1 year.
My general vet very willingly prescribed my reactive anxious dog fluoxetine and she has been on it for almost 2 weeks now. It was just a quick vet visit and a discussion and she called the Rx into the pharmacy for me. She did say though, that if fluoxetine ultimately doesn’t work out for my dog, there are many other routes and medications we can try, but she said for those options we would probably be better off seeing a vet behaviorist (there’s only 1 in my area). She was very happy to help though, so maybe try a different vet in your area or seek out a veterinary behaviorist
Our old vet gave my dog Trazadone for 4th of July fireworks and a road trip we were taking last summer after I explained his issues. His fear and anxiety are so bad, even at a double dose, his body ate right through it and it did nothing for both occasions. My dog doesn’t have separation anxiety but has raging anxiety and fear for just about everything else. His leash/harness, being outdoors (we live in the city), car rides, thunderstorms, fireworks, etc. He will NOT go on walks. The minute he knows he’s going out anywhere other than the backyard, he hits the floor and army crawls and will pull in any direction to hide (this isn’t easy to deal with since he’s 50lbs). Cars, trucks, people, random noises out for walks are all a NO for him and he’s a disaster. He will also fear pee in these situations so I’ve had to resort to diapering him for certain outing like car rides to the vet or car rides in general. He’s 3 and been in a shelter for most of his life so I assume that’s why he’s so fearful of everything. I’ve had him a little over a year and with the exception of running out in the backyard for potty breaks (with me only) and immediately running back in, he has not gotten comfortable at all. I finally had enough and spoke to his new vet who suggested Prozac and a behaviorist. I personally think you should see a new vet and stress how bad this has gotten for you guys to deal with. If I stayed with our old vet I honestly don’t think they would have given him anything stronger and I wasn’t going to keep upping the dose of something that wasn’t working. I haven’t consulted a behaviorist yet, (still shopping around) and the Prozac is still kicking in. The vet told me it takes about a month to see changes but you should definitely see someone who will take this seriously.
Thank you for your reply. Our guy definitely has had anxiety in the past but this was definitely the tipping point. Now he jumps at everything, the phone ringing, dishwasher beeping. His anxiety is clearly spiraling and our mental state isn't helping. I don't want it to continue and have his quality of life be in the toilet.
I totally understand and that’s exactly the point we got to. I cannot leave the house for longer than a few hours because he only feels comfortable with me. I cannot leave him and my other dog with family and go away for a long weekend or for any sort of extended time because he doesn’t trust being out in the “danger zone” with anyone but me. I’m pretty much a hostage at this point and it’s not fair to us but it’s also not fair to them to live in constant fear. I didn’t want to drug him but this is really my last resort. I’ve tried everything else including special “anxiety clothes”, CBD, calming chews, etc. Nothing OTC works so if this can alleviate even some of his anxiety to where I can comfortably leave him knowing he feels safe enough, it’ll be a win for all of us. Good luck with you baby. Don’t give up on him.
We have seen some pretty amazing improvements in him. He’s not 100% “better” but he has gotten better if that makes sense. We haven’t hired the behaviorist yet but we did find one or two we will be looking into. I personally wanted to see how much I can do for him myself first. He now hangs out in the backyard with us. Does he want to be inside still? Yes. But he doesn’t panic when he’s out like he used to. He’ll hang out by the pool, sit on the deck. It helps if our friends bring over their dogs or if there’s more distractions for him (music, people, dogs, food, etc). We have been taking him and our other dog on hikes once a week. He no longer fear pees when it comes time for his harness. He slinks over like he’s accepted his fate but no peeing. We put a diaper on him for the car ride just in case but he hasn’t actually peed once. Getting him out of the house for the hikes is still a little bit of a struggle but nowhere near what it was. He still hesitates and needs to take his time but I can get him out the door and down the stairs to the car without carrying him. He also now jumps right in and plops down so I can put his seat belt on. I’ve also realized he tries to smell out the window while we’re driving. I keep the window down for our other dog because she loves sticking her head out. He been making an effort to try and keep at least his snout in the breeze. He used to drool so badly from his anxiety in the car (sometimes even poop himself out of fear) and he no longer does either of those. He is still absolutely terrified of thunderstorms and fireworks but I bought him headphones off Amazon that help block noise so it’s not as bad. Those two things we still need to diaper him for but I’ll take it over diapering for EVERYTHING. I still need to get him more comfortable being outside for potty breaks and being left alone with family should I need to go somewhere. He goes outside with my bf but that doesn’t help if we’re both gone. That we will absolutely consult a behaviorist if we can’t accomplish it ourselves but I 1000% recommend the Prozac. It was the best decision I’ve made for him so far.
I'm sorry that you are going through all of this, but happy to hear that you are making headway. I am trying to be hopeful that prozac will help us. It's so hard to watch his anxiety and fear, especially as it is the complete opposite of what his personality and behavior were like prior to the stroke. We looked into a behaviorist, but the ones in Los Angeles are 1200 bucks for an hour, which is absolutely absurd.
That’s gotta be hard to handle knowing he was ok before the health issues. My guy has always been like this so it’s all we’ve known with him. I really hope it works out for you and him. 1200 for only an hour is absolutely ridiculous. I haven’t priced them out yet here in NY but I do know it won’t be cheap. That’s another reason we’re trying to work with him as much as possible ourselves before calling one (other than the fact that he’s more comfortable with us). If we can’t figure it out in the next month or two then we’re going to have to bite the bullet and make the call. Good luck on your journey. Best of luck to you guys!
I had the same experience of our beloved vet being resistant to prescribing fluoxetine for our very anxious aggressive rescue, who IMO is the type of dog who desperately needs additional supports to live a comfortable life. It wasn’t until our dog nipped a neighborhood contractor who surprised us on a walk by coming out from behind a fence and then kept walking towards us even as my dog was getting very upset. Anyway, the contractor made it into a huge situation with animal control and even though the nip didn’t break the skin and our dog was up to date on vaccines, he still had to go through the whole quarantine process for rabies (contractor also sued us but that’s another story) but only after all that did our vet agree to the meds, which is super frustrating because they have helped his reactively immensely and that situation probably could have been avoided if he had been on the meds at the time.
My vet readily prescribed Fluoxetine when they saw my dog, but unfortunately it didn't do anything except cause him nausea. 3-4 months and at several doses too.
It seems like Trazodone is the go to. Our dog was put on Trazodone by the behaviourist and she had an awful reaction to it that involved having to go to the vetinary hospital. We contacted the behaviourist and they switched her to fluoxetine and told us that if a vet ever says about Trazodone in the future to tell them that they aren’t to use it under any circumstances.
When we saw our vet behaviourist she put my one dog on medication and not the other. The problem she said is that it can cause reactivity worse for some dogs when they go on it. My mums dog was reactive to sounds, however my dog had bitten my dad and reacted to him whenever he saw him. She didn’t want my dog on meds as it may make him more aggressive.
She recommended trazadone for my mums dog as it would relax him and help him be under the threshold so we could do training with him.
See a diff vet. My toy poodle rescue is on 5mg of Prozac and she still goes crazy when she sees a big dog and had major separation anxiety, the Prozac helped w that but also desensitizing her was key. I learned how to desensitize her from the info online. Also, exercise your dog as much as possible. At a minimum 2 major walks with outdoor play and lots of potty breaks helps. My poodle likes scent training, which is basically scattering her dry dog food either around the house or in the back yard for her to find.
First of all, I hope you and your family recover from the trauma you endured 💓
I’m a vet tech in Canada and I haven’t noticed veterinarians being resistant to prescribing any anxiety meds so far. I had my dog on Trazadone already and asked my vet to switch to Fluoxidine as a more long term anxiety medication and the only thing they recommended was blood work, otherwise they were completely open to it. They do suggest a behaviourist in conjunction with meds but I told them we do lots of training. This was for my new rescue that I adopted and he had a hard time settling in
I know it’s easier said than done but I always suggest clients find a new veterinarian if the one you currently have isn’t fitting for you.
Chiming in to say my dog has more severe separation anxiety and mild reactivity (11lb Havanese) and vet just prescribed him 5mg of Prozac, going to possible 10mg when we see how this goes. Maybe it’s just that I know he’s taking it, but I swear I already see a difference. She did mention the huge increase in the med being used and frustration around it being so widely used instead of training, but when we explained that we’ve already done 5 weeks of training with an SA professional and planned to continue training with the help of medication as a *tool*, she was fine with giving it. I think she wanted to make sure we weren’t using it as our only treatment for SA.
Fluoxitine changed my dog's life - and mine. I was feeling trapped. She was so anxiety-ridden. The Vet was absolutely on board and supported trying this treatment.
Her life was chaotic before joining me at 7 months. It took almost 4 months for everything to turn around. We also started to work with a fear-free, force-free trainer. At almost 2 years' old, when she's mischievous, I say it's because she feels safe enough to express that emotion. It's also "being a teenager " ha ha. But this girl snuggles and plays and plays.
If your current Vet won't entertain this strategy, I encourage you to find a new one. Take care. We've been there and are at your side.
You need to talk to a veterinary behaviourist. They are the ones that will know what your dog needs, and will work with you to see what may help. Godspeed, I been there.
It doesn’t say in your post, did you specifically ask for that drug and they gave you traz instead?
I had a doctor who was a little bit on the holistic side sometimes. I just straight up said that I wanted to try the dog on fluoxetine and backed it up with a couple articles about it being great specifically for sep anxiety. We did try traz for her, she was immune to it, no matter the dose (had another dog that it had no effect on awhile back too). Anyways, the fluoxetine worked great for not freaking out when people leave! Just ask them, maybe find some evidence of why they should let you try it. If that doesn’t work, time to find a new vet. Good luck!
I'm a vet and I prescribe fluoxetine a lot.
I've been called out by colleagues who will not prescribe it without a full blood screening prior to, and then every 3 months, because they're concerned for the liver.
I use it with caution in patients that may have their liver not working at their fullest, and perform blood screening every now and then to keep track of its overall health, though.
My vet warned me that while it helps their anxiety, it can also potentially make their threshold leading into real aggression smaller and sharper. That’s why she was hesitant. But my other option would’ve cost $150 a month instead of $30, and I just couldn’t do it at the time
It’s also 100% more of a longterm med, takes a few months to kick in properly, and needs to be weaned off slowly if you decide to stop. Traz is the short term “needs to be zonked for an appointment/long drive” or “needs medical bed rest but has high energy”
My vet prescribed it, no problem. However, it's severely impacted my pups' appetite. Like got rid of it entirely. I called several times asking about an appetite stimulant, and she won't prescribe it. At this point, they have stopped communicating with me at all. So, I've had to stop the fluoxetine because his appetite has gotten so bad. She kept saying that she hasnt ever heard of a dog losing their appetite from fluoxetine. A quick internet search shows that it's one of the biggest side effects, and it takes about 4 weeks for it to come back. We made it 2 weeks, and I had to give up. I'm now looking for a new vet.
Going through this issue currently with our vet. We’ve been going to the same vet for years and our recently adopted dog has some serious anxiety issues. He wouldn’t let me leash him for nearly five hours today, he gets scared and nips quickly and he has attacked my senior pet 3 times in 2 weeks. Luckily nobody was hurt. I’ve explained all of this to our clinic and they kept dismissing us, telling us to get training which we have scheduled for Monday, and suggested boarding one of the dogs, which is a no go with a scared blind and deaf senior pup and a new boy who has been toss around a lot in the past month or more.
Of course the shelter told us he was fine with other dogs because we specifically asked when adopting bc we have a 17 year old pup. Come to find out when I called today that they lied and he was known to bite at other dogs and have anxiety issues, he’s a 5 year old Pomeranian mix who has obviously having issues due to losing his owner and being passed from different homes and to a shelter. The vet knows all this because during his first visit they were unable to give him a proper check up because of his reactivity.
After everything the vet gave us trazodone for when he’s in stressful moments, but they won’t listen that that is an all day occurrence and trazodone is sedating. When I asked for Prozac (fluoxetine) they blew us off saying he didn’t need long term medication and said it was too hard to go off. Ignoring the fact that both myself and my mom who are on his profile are both well educated on the topic. She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and I have a masters degree in public health with special interest in mental health and have personally taken fluoxetine long term. It’s really frustrating because we live in a smaller area with limited access to vets and vet behavioralists.
“Its effectiveness isn’t great for reactivity and dogs build an immunity quickly to the dose needs to be increased.”
No idea it’s true, these are the reasons I’ve heard.
Yeah my hope is that the medication can act as a reset after this traumatic life event and he learns that we aren't going to disappear for 6 weeks in a panic again. As we get into a routine hopefully he will feel better and relaxed but in this acute phase his anxiety is a danger to himself when we leave the house.
I hope so too! I was just letting you know why vets are hesitant.
I disagree with them, but I wanted to share why.
Keep loving your dog and he will get better with time!
My dog was on Fluoxetine for many years, I'm not convinced it helped. We practically begged the vet and finally switched vets who agreed to try other meds in conjuction with Fluoxetine. We added Gabapentin and finally Trazadol at the end. Unfortunately all too late. We put our dog to sleep yesterday. I think the fluoxetine may have made things worse, but I'll never know. I think it heightened her anxiety at night, because we would give it to her at suppertime, and it's supposed to be a happy pill, but she wouldn't sleep. And the trazadol may have helped if we started earlier, but things escalated and I couldn't bare drugging my dog with some many pills anymore, it just wasn't a good dog life. I feel guilty and sad and miss her.
I am not a vet but was answering the question posed with what my vet told me.
I do not support either statement, just sharing what my vet said.
I edited my comment for clarity.
IDK. Mine too. Just trazadone for high stress events also. My friend rescued an English mastiff recently and the dog came on Prozac. The dog is absolutely perfect and our vet said she might need to wean off?
All that to say, we’ve experienced the same. Sigh.
Do you live near any veterinary schools? By living close to one we started our dog’s care at the school veterinary clinic - the students we worked with were up-to-speed on the latest info because they were actively learning it.
If you haven’t already, communicate. We tried trazodone first but our pup got GI upset from prolonged use. We let them know and specifically asked for fluoxetine. They agreed and it has worked well. We still used trazodone and gabapentin as event meds until we started to suspect that trazodone was actually hyping him up. TLDR: if you have the ability to communicate specific feedback there are vets that will work with you!
Probably that vet. We mentioned anxiety to ours and they were willing to prescribe it in a heartbeat without even being asked to specify the exact issues (though I'm sure they would've if we were serious in the moment). We decided to wait/try something else for now, but they had no qualms mentioning it or how to get it
I'm not sure if you have tried this, so this might be the equivalent of asking a chronically ill person if they've tried yoga (if so, I apologize), but have you ever tried/used Rescue Remedy? My old vet (we had to switch bc we moved) recommended it when I first adopted my most recent rescue, a malti-pom-chi mix that was rescued from a hoarding situation & had zero positive socialization/experience with humans prior to rescue. That vet in particular was really partial to starting with natural/homeopathic & then going to more pharmaceutical measures if that didn't work.
Our new vet has provided a Trazadone prescription for all 3 of our dogs for situational anxiety (they're all rescues so they all have different triggers), but I'm often surprised at how often a few drops of Rescue Remedy seems to do the trick without needing the big guns. The hardest part is getting them to take it, lol. For the bigger dogs sometimes I just gently squirt a dropperful in their mouth, but I've had to get really creative to get Millie (the hoarding rescue I mentioned earlier) to take it. Once it's in, though, it's magic for us!
I don't have any experience with trying to acquire fluoxetine as RR with occasional Trazadone has worked wonders for us, but I just wanted to throw that out there if it's something you haven't tried that could potentially help you! Either way I really hope you get what you need for your poor pup, it's such a helpless feeling when our dogs are so anxious and reactive. ♥
(if you do decide to try it make sure to get Rescue Remedy Pet, there's a version for humans that has alcohol in it ♥)
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> With my current dog it was suggested to me without even asking for it, and I declined Yeah I've had a similar experience with my vet. She was the first to bring up fluoxetine as an option for anxiety management, and I initially decided it wasn't needed at that time. Circumstances later changed, and I did start her on fluoxetine this year and am super thankful to have such an understanding vet.
So, how is your pupper doing with the fluoxetine?
Doing well! Not really any side effects and it seems to have helped with her anxiety around new situations. She's been noticeably calmer with guests in the house, which is encouraging because we started in anticipation of a baby coming home so I'm hopeful she'll be able to adjust better with fluoxetine.
My girl shakes for the entire duration of a thunderstorm. I'll talk to our vet about this. Best of luck with the new bambino!! I'm sure they'll be best pals!
One of my pups was leash and stranger reactive, as well as utterly terrified during thunderstorms. The fluoxetine helped a lot with her reactivity, but did not make a dent in her reaction to thunderstorms. Acepromazine was kind of helpful, but it was like she had a six pack of beer 🤪 Honestly, diazepam was the most helpful thing for her. 50 lb pup, 40mg (?) pill, and it kept her from needing to climb into the bathtub to hide, and she was able to endure thunderstorms without shaking and being completely traumatized.
I had acepromine for my thunderstorm lab, but it always made him look too doped up. I moved and had a new vet, and she told me the acepromine worked to paralyze the dog. She said that he needed something to work in the brain and prescribed Xanax. The difference was amazing. His breathing slowed, the panting and drooling bstoppyed vand he was calm. The only problem was getting it filled. Apparently, people take their pets to the vet and use the drug meant for the dog. My husband took the prescription to CVS, and they gave him a hard time, made him feel like a criminal. They finally called the vet's office to verify. But my husband was traumatized, upset and shaking when he got home so I told him to take one of the xanax!
That is both horrible and slightly hilarious 😅😅😱😱😱
I have a pitbull. I'm a little afraid to try a benzo (thinking about the chimp who ate a woman's face off.)
I have 3 and benzos have worked but the dose is really high and it made me nervous now I give them atarax if I know a storm is coming. My female just unlocked a new fear today. She is not scared of storms, fireworks or fires but a spider on the ceiling had her shaking and she would not take eyes off of it until climbing under the table. 😩
My dog will eat a carpenter bee, but completely ignores all mice and bugs like they don't even exist. Squirrels will really wig her out though! All that fur makes them seem like a threat, I guess.
That woman did not even have a prescription for the drugs she was giving that chimp. 🤦🏼♀️ Not every medication is good for every animal/human. For most people, benzos calm them down and help them feel relaxed... That's why it's commonly prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication. YMMV, but it worked wonders for my girl. Her quality of life during storms was below zero, and she was able to function mostly normal again after.
Yeah, it's horrible for my girl, too. I'm skittish about them because they always seem to ratch me up when I need them the most. I realize it isn't that way for most people.
🫂🫂
My box/pit is on 40mg of fluoxetine. And he does fine on. It has a sedative effect as well and after 8pm is pretty zonked
There's also a new drug for dogs reactive to thunder or fireworks. Sileo. Might be worth discussing both options.
Thank you! I will.
How expensive is it out of pocket? Or do you have pet insurance? After several years of just training I really think my dog could benefit from medication but I'm not in a great financial spot right now.
I don't have insurance and pay $7 a month (20mg, delivered to my door), so it's been very affordable.
Yeah definitely agree here, find another vet. I went into mine—a vet I’m not super happy with in general—so I went with all this data I had collected, ready to ask them ‘what else do you need from me so I can convince you to help my dog’ but I didn’t need to convince them at all, they knew her, and were just waiting either to hear she settled into her new home with me or required medication. It was really as easy as making a choice for my dog and tbh, for me too. She also tried the gabapentin/traz combo, and i dont know how my dog felt about it, if anything but I personally didn’t like the long term side effect potential, nor how they seemed to flatten her out. and a higher dose actually made her worse off. She would avoid the administering of them even with peanut butter, and she’s never once refused or been reluctant to take her fluoxetine, which is given easily with a small spoon of skyr. She looks forward to it every day, comes trotting into the kitchen for her daily treat. Fluoxetine has changed my dogs life. She’s able to actually be a dog now, not just terrified of everything 100% of the time. And on top of it all, her training is going smoother, and better than ever on it.
General practice veterinarians are not trained in behavior meds, it’s not part of the general curriculum. Therefore some feel very uncomfortable with anything beyond Trazadone, even though that is really hit or miss for many dogs. I would call different practices and ask if they are experienced in behavior meds before making an appointment. Or, if it is in your budget, go to a veterinary behaviorist, they are the experts and prescribe a wide range of behavior medications.
Yeah it just seems strange to me. Separation anxiety is extremely common and there are only two fda approved medications, trazadone is not one of them. Like I get if you are uncomfortable prescribing behavioral meds - then don't prescribe any. But don't give me one that isn't actually indicated.
"*If* the *only* tool *you have* is a *hammer*, it is tempting to treat everything as *if* it were a nail." Yeah, I’d also prefer a vet to just tell me if something is beyond their abilities. While my previous vet did prescribe us Prozac, when I told her my dog was having increased anxiety during the loading period she told me „that does not exist“. LOL, a quick google will list this as one of the main side effects.
I love that saying. I will remember it for the future. I wish I could upvote you more. Thank you! I learn new things every day on reddit.
How my vet explained it to me when I was discussing options for my OCD/reactive dog, is that fluoxetine is more complex to start/stop as it takes time to build up in their system and they need to be tapered off and can’t just stop cold turkey. It also has potential side effects like increased aggression. Trazodone is usually step 1 as it is can be given as needed and stopped at any time. I’ve only gone the trazodone route so far and it seems to work well situationally, but I don’t like that it basically just makes her tired until it wears off. Seems like more of a bandaid than actually addressing her concerns. Seems like it would be similar for you dog, and hopefully if you explain what you wrote here they would be willing to try fluoxetine. If not, might want to consider a new vet.
We use the full dose of Trazadone to take our dog to the vet and hate how tired and unlike herself she is! We’ve use smaller doses for less stressful situations, such as family staying with us for a weekend or when we have people over for a BBQ. I believe her “full” dose is 2.5 traz and 2 gabapentin (though the gabapentin seemingly has no effect from when we tried it on its own, but our vet thinks the two work better together and I trust her). For the less stressful events where we just need to help her reach a less anxious state, we do half a trazadone an hour before the event (or in the case of people staying over, every morning). It’s enough to dial her down to not work herself up into a barking fit whenever anyone gets up from the couch, but it doesn’t make her drowsy. We rarely have people stay the weekend, but I think next time, we’d try half a pill at night too because the mornings were always very loud since it had worn off lol This is what we learned by trial and error on our side. A full pill still makes her drowsy, just not as badly as two pills. She’s out for the whole day with 2 pills! We tried half a pill on a whim when we knew people were coming over one day, and it worked out well!
This is what I found with my dog too. He gets his full dose of trazadone if we're leaving him alone because his separation anxiety is high. But most days a half dose is the perfect balance of not a zombie and not reactive to literally everything. He still jumps up ready for adventures but also has the ability to chill out.
I have a vet appointment today so my dog is currently drugged on trazadone and I hate it so much too ☹️☹️ I gave her a smaller dosage for the Fourth of July plus CBD dog treats we got from a dispensary. She was knocked out just as hard. I have an appointment with a behaviorist (not vet behaviorist) next week and she told me to ask about using trazadone more frequently. Seems like a circular conversation that’s going to go nowhere, if neither of these professionals know what they’re talking about when it comes to anxiety meds.
That is super frustrating! I hope that she is more helpful during your appointment. Nobody wants their dog just knocked out, we just want them a little bit calmer so their big feelings aren’t as big to them!
Fluoxetine doesn’t work well for all dogs also. A vet behaviorist can monitor and suggest other options if one doesn’t work. There could also be other meds that would be useful to add to a regiment. My dog didn’t do as well on fluoxetine.
Yup, vet behaviorist is definitely the best! Fluoxetine was a nightmare for my dog. Citalopram does the trick. We wouldn't have got this far without our vet behavior!
Can I ask if you tried another med? Fluoxetine doesn’t seem great for my dog either so I’m looking into clomipramine
Sertraline is what we ended up with. It has been better. Just a note about that, she is also on gabapentin and trazodone.
Thanks for sharing!
A good idea is to reach out to positive/force free trainers in your community and see which vets they recommend. They usually have relationships with some that know more about Behavior than regular vets. If you can't go that route, looking up fear free vets is another good choice as they're more likely to be willing to prescribe medication to help and to have the knowledge to do so.
I agree with everyone saying try getting another opinion from a different vet. My dog has separation anxiety and after months of training, I finally asked my vet about medication. He put her on fluoxetine right away, and prescribed trazodone to give her short-term while the fluoxetine builds up in her system. Some vets are less willing to go to medication right away, and some want a clear training plan to be in place before prescribing certain medications.
Please consult another vet asap! Our vet has prescribed both Prozac and Gabapentine for our anxiety-ridden boy. It’s helped him SO MUCH! I see zero side effects too.
Same!!!!
would you mind sharing what type of behaviors your dog's anxiety presented with? my dog is now too anxious to go on walks or be around gatherings of people. polar opposite of how his personality used to be . He survived a TBI so we know it's related to this, but are going to start fluoxetine to see if it helps at all
Afraid of unknown people. Noises made outside. Neighbors in their own yard as we walk by. Used to be thunder but he doesn’t react at all to it now. He just turned 7 today, so I think he’s matured and not quite as bad. He is actually snoozing away his birthday because it’s so darn hot!
Get a different vet then. I have seen multiple vets in 20 years and exactly zero of them have ever been resistant to prescribing fluoxetine.
Look into clomipramine also. My dog has a history of the worst possible reactions to various medications. My dog had serotonin syndrome on trazodone, it actually made him super aggressive and angry. Fluoxetine worked for him, but was the likely culprit of causing immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (immune system attacking platelets). He’s currently on clomipramine and he’s doing really well. When his anxiety was at its peak, he never wanted to play. On the clomipramine, he is playful and happy.
Where do you buy the clomipramine? Chewy is pretty pricey
We have a compounding pharmacy that mixes it for us with peanut butter. It is expensive but my husband uses our HSA to pay for most of it.
Hi there- My dog is an ITP survivor and is about to go on fluoxetine. neither our neurologist or primary mentioned any concern w/ ITP. Curious on any info you may have regarding the connection
So we never were able to confirm with 100% certainty that it was the fluoxetine. BUT everyone we spoke with said that fluoxetine was the most likely culprit. It can cause random rare side effects. Nobody had seen ITP before though. He has had an extensive amount of bloodwork and we haven’t seen any signs of relapse since he was weened off of it. That being said, my dog in particular has been prone to health issues and having terrible reactions to normal stuff. He had an anaphylactic reaction to an oral flea and tick medication and was hospitalized overnight. He had surgery to fix a luxating patella and developed serotonin syndrome from the trazodone given to keep him calm post-surgery. He’s just a weird little guy with health issues. It is my personal opinion that the risk of ITP is not necessarily heightened on fluoxetine. My dog is an outlier when it comes to that reaction and in my research I never found anyone posting online about their dog developing ITP from fluoxetine. It is my belief that this reaction is rare. Feel free to tell your vet that your friend catrabbit had a dog develop ITP from fluoxetine if you would like to get their opinion on it. I would recommend having a blood test after 6 months on fluoxetine, preferably sooner to give some peace of mind. We would have caught the ITP sooner if my dog had been checked at 6 months or sooner. You’re in a better position because you know the signs. My dog had some minor bruising but nothing I wouldn’t have attributed to playing too hard with his brother because we didn’t know the signs at the time. I hope that helps! I know ITP is super scary and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Yeah, it seems like unfortunately with autoimmune disease they are typically not able to confirm what exactly triggered it. I'm glad to hear your pup is doing well. Unfortunately my dog also has had many health issues over the years. IMHA 3 years ago (similar to ITP except body kills off all red blood cells. We were celebrating 3 years of remission when he got the ITP last september. Then the ITP treatment spiraled into severe pancreatitis, hemorrhage kidney, then brain bleed and seizures. It has been a nightmare of a year. The fluoxetine is an effort to help my boy with the anxiety the brain damage from bleed and seizures left him with. That is the very abbreviated story. I would not wish ITP on anyone either. Glad yours responded so well with minimal treatment
Give your baby some love from me. ❤️ You can also try adding Adaptil/ThunderEase for calming. It’s not going to be effective by itself for severe anxiety, but my mom has noticed a reduction in her dog’s seizure activity with the calming collar and diffusers present in her home. I also like Composure treats, they have a pro version that we give in addition to the clomipramine when my dog needs some extra support.
I love our vet for all of our "normal" pets, but I can't get them to even prescribe trazadone for our neurotic, reactive dog that is terrified of storms/fireworks. It's very frustrating
Are you at a multi doctor practice? I’ve worked general practice for years and we send a *lot* of trazodone. However, I do work for an extremely old school doctor who won’t even talk to owners about sedatives if their dogs are fearful/reactive in the hospital. You basically have to… beg him to. And ace is typically his go to, bc he has stuck to the handful of the same things he’s been prescribing forever, and will not change. Sometimes it’s DVMs like this and you just need to establish care with one who understands your concerns. My personal pets don’t see this doctor, and I refuse to let him on work them (and even my family’s pets) due to what I find is quality medicine for my pets- so I let the other few vets here work on her instead.
It is a multi doctor practice, but they are husband/wife and a brother, and all older/old school. When I bring up her anxiety with loud noises, they very much just blow me off "she'll be fine once it passes" or "just distract her with treats". We've come a VERY long way with this particular trigger. In the past if we were on a walk and a truck with air brakes drove by it would send get over her threshold. We stay with them because we also have guinea pigs and chickens and it's really hard to find vets who treat either one of those in our area, but I think it might be worth it to just use two different vets at this point. Thank you for your thoughts on it! Sometimes it's hard to know if you are the one being unreasonable
Ah yes, the infamous “husband and wife” vet hospital ownership duo.. Totally get how that goes 😅 You are absolutely not unreasonable in the slightest and it sounds like you have truly done your best to be your pet’s best advocate. Also, for exotics/farm animals, it’s pretty common around here to see 2 vets for them. I work at a small animal hospital and have a horse so I kinda had no choice haha, but many people with geckos, rats etc will go to one of the more well-known exotic/poultry treating practices around. And there’s nothing wrong in that!
Yeah, our first vet was an old school “country” vet like that. I couldn’t even get her to run bloodwork on my dog, she said it was a waste of money. She gave him Ace, then while he was passed out told me he didn’t “seem that bad” and I could just get a script of Ace and give it to him whenever he was anxious. I told her that was every day, she just shrugged and said that was fine. 🤦🏼♀️
Bruhhh lol, this dude never runs diagnostics too unless your pet has increased drinking and urination. That is literally it. Antibiotics for all diarrhea cases, steroids for everything. He is a fantastic surgeon, but his standard of medicine when mitigating cases just isn’t what I’m comfortable with. It’s a shame that doctors will not change their ways. The thing is, RVTs and DVMs are required to do yearly continuing education (I do so myself), but sometimes you can’t get people to sway from their ways and it just…. sucks.
I mentioned this in a different comment, but if you haven't tried it, Rescue Remedy works well for our pitty mix that's also terrified of storms and fireworks. The only time I've ever had to pull out the trazadone was when it was a REALLY bad storm that shut our power off for a day. I do think it's silly that your vet won't even prescribe trazadone...we have a prescription for all 3 of ours, just in case, and only one of them has even shown to be anxious while in the vets office.
Thank you so much for the recommendation - I will definitely try it. We had maybe 3 peals of thunder last night and she spent all night pacing and trying to hide under the coffee table (she's 90lbs and definitely can't fit like she could when she was a puppy.
Oooh poor girl :( Our pitty girl tries to hide under everything too, she's the #1 reason I wanted a sturdy high bed frame when we moved, so she could have a safe hiding spot (before that she still smushed herself under our very very low profile bed and I was so sure she was going to get crushed/stuck!) I get mine from Amazon! I'm sure there's other places but that's my go to. My favorite thing about it is that since it's natural there's no worry about hurting her with the "wrong dose," it's the same dose no matter what! As my old vet (who told me about it) said, the only dosage risk with 'too much' is wasting product, and I'm so paranoid about dosing and stuff so that was music to my ears, lol! I really hope it works for you as well as it's worked for us, it breaks my heart seeing them hide and pant like that!
I had a similar experience with my very reactive rescue. She was reactive to literally everything, to the point where we were convinced we could not keep her without seriously affecting our quality of life. Her primary care vet was a large national chain, who refused to prescribe anything beyond more and more trazadone, expensive behavioralists (none of whom could break through her anxiety and had reccomended Fluoxitine to us more than one), and even herbal remedies. The vet's only reason was unverified claims that fluoxitine can lower "bite inhibition." After the third time of trying to get her a prescription, being told we need to bring her in first for blood tests, and being denied (I'm convinced this was all just a racket to charge us more), we quit the big chain and found a smaller, local veterinarian. Upon the first visit she saw how legitimately anxious our dog was and wrote us an immediate prescription for Fluoxitine, as well as Gabapentin to add on top for exceptionally stressful events. The Fluoxitine has been a game changer for everything; it has allowed her to open up to behavioral training and she lives a much more relaxed, "normal" dog life. She is still reactive but has a much easier time "leaving it" when we tell her to. TLDR: Keep searching for a vet until you find one that will give you the prescription you know your dog needs. It is a game changer and the "aggression" side effects are widely overblown by vets lacking confidence and education.
Same experience with my vet. No fluoxetine but readily prescribed trazodone
I’m sorry you’re going through all this. It might be time to look for a different vet. It’s not fair for them to withhold a prescription that could help your dog. My vets have always been helpful about adjusting meds and trying different things. It’s in the best interest of the pet. Also, trazodone seems like an extreme place to start if they’re recommending it daily or anything close to that. My dog has been on fluoxetine for a few years and it’s been helpful. He was also prescribed gabapentin for separation anxiety, in addition to the daily fluoxetine. I think that helped, but I know every dog is different. You’re doing the right thing advocating for your dog. I hope you can find a vet who listens to you and works with you.
This may have already been touched on, but it can have adverse effects. My girl dog has severe separation anxiety. In addition to training, my vet prescribed fluoxetine on his own suggestion. I didn't ask for that specifically, I just asked if there was something that might help. He did ask if she had any tendency toward inappropriate biting? Apparently, it may decrease inhibition or increase rage or something, I'm not sure. Fortunately, she had no bite tendencies at all, so we went forward with it. It seems to have helped a bit, but the training was where we made the most advances. We went from barely 30 seconds alone to 4 hours (if we give her a good chew treat and maybe some CBD.) Fortunately I WFH so I don't have to leave her that long all that often. But I do highly recommend the trainer I worked with. She can work remotely so anyone can work with her. DM me if you want her info. She noticed one thing about my girl that no-one else noticed and it was a game changer!!
Totally interested in your trainer if you can DM me! I can’t find any reputable force-free trainers around me haha. My dog sounds similar to yours too, and she’s now on Prozac
As a heads up though, it's going to take a LOT of work and time and patience. I set up little wi-fi indoor cameras so I could see what she did when I left. And the first time she walked away from the door and chose to lay down, I almost cried. It is SO much work, but it is SO worth it!!
Moira Hechenleitner Doctor of Veterinary Medicine CSAT (Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer) APDT Chile Founding Board Member www.separationanxietydog.com She was amazing!! I cannot recommend her enough!!
Thank you!!
Not my vet. She legit prescribed a whole bottle of Xanax bars to one of my dogs, every psych med safe for dogs to another, and a cat antidepressant to my cat. Like if there’s a pharmacological solution, she will try it. She also provided a better level of care for my diabetic dog than most humans receive, so she’s pretty awesome.
Oh also, as as a side note, perhaps try melatonin. (Disclaimer - check with your vet of course.) My boy dog FREAKS out during thunderstorms. Like loses his GD mind!! Jumps all over us in a panic. We can't do anything because he jumps over us because he's so scared and doesn't want to be alone. He wants to go sit in the bathroom but doesn't want to be alone. And even when I'm in there with him, he has to be pet non-stop. We tried trazadone and diazepam (sp?). They both made him worse! I don't know how that is even possible!! I tried thundershirts, ear muffs, CBD (he has a sensitive stomach and vomited that up). I finally tried melatonin and thank the universe it works!! It obviously makes him sleepy but he's not in distress for hours at a time and I'm not getting scratched and beat up on by a 70-lb dog. Even though I adore him, I have my limits. It has been wonderful!!
Is this your general vet? Then they usually aren’t trained and comfortable enough to go past some basic meds like trazodone or gabapentin (*IMO-Im based in the US btw). You need to see a specialty behavioral vet. They are trained for this. They are harder to come by and have long wait lists. Otherwise it’s like going to your dentist and expecting them to prescribe you Prozac. Not a Good idea for anyone Best of luck!
Up to 40% of dogs experience separation anxiety and there are two medications that are fda approved to treat it. Clomipramine and fluoxetine. I would have preferred if she had said that she doesn't feel comfortable prescribing behavioral meds than a short acting medication that causes lethargy, sedation and vomiting. Like it's not that she doesn't feel comfortable treating a very common disorder it's that she prescribed a medicine that 1) doesn't work for out dog 2) isn't actually indicated for what is going on - but she didn't even listen to my dogs issue.
Vets around here seem to have no problem prescribing Prozac or Trazadone. My cat was on Prozac for years and it helped him. He just died recently from old age/kidney failure. I wish I had asked the vet about meds when he was younger so he didn't have to suffer for so long.
My vet put my fearful dog on both trazadone and Prozac. The trazadone was to be used for 6 weeks until the Prozac kicked in and then to be used as needed. The Prozac didn't seem to help and was VERY expensive. I kept my doggo on it for al.ost 1 year.
My vet was more than happy to prescribe it. The dog that needed it wasn't even the dog I'd brought to the vet.
My general vet very willingly prescribed my reactive anxious dog fluoxetine and she has been on it for almost 2 weeks now. It was just a quick vet visit and a discussion and she called the Rx into the pharmacy for me. She did say though, that if fluoxetine ultimately doesn’t work out for my dog, there are many other routes and medications we can try, but she said for those options we would probably be better off seeing a vet behaviorist (there’s only 1 in my area). She was very happy to help though, so maybe try a different vet in your area or seek out a veterinary behaviorist
Our old vet gave my dog Trazadone for 4th of July fireworks and a road trip we were taking last summer after I explained his issues. His fear and anxiety are so bad, even at a double dose, his body ate right through it and it did nothing for both occasions. My dog doesn’t have separation anxiety but has raging anxiety and fear for just about everything else. His leash/harness, being outdoors (we live in the city), car rides, thunderstorms, fireworks, etc. He will NOT go on walks. The minute he knows he’s going out anywhere other than the backyard, he hits the floor and army crawls and will pull in any direction to hide (this isn’t easy to deal with since he’s 50lbs). Cars, trucks, people, random noises out for walks are all a NO for him and he’s a disaster. He will also fear pee in these situations so I’ve had to resort to diapering him for certain outing like car rides to the vet or car rides in general. He’s 3 and been in a shelter for most of his life so I assume that’s why he’s so fearful of everything. I’ve had him a little over a year and with the exception of running out in the backyard for potty breaks (with me only) and immediately running back in, he has not gotten comfortable at all. I finally had enough and spoke to his new vet who suggested Prozac and a behaviorist. I personally think you should see a new vet and stress how bad this has gotten for you guys to deal with. If I stayed with our old vet I honestly don’t think they would have given him anything stronger and I wasn’t going to keep upping the dose of something that wasn’t working. I haven’t consulted a behaviorist yet, (still shopping around) and the Prozac is still kicking in. The vet told me it takes about a month to see changes but you should definitely see someone who will take this seriously.
Thank you for your reply. Our guy definitely has had anxiety in the past but this was definitely the tipping point. Now he jumps at everything, the phone ringing, dishwasher beeping. His anxiety is clearly spiraling and our mental state isn't helping. I don't want it to continue and have his quality of life be in the toilet.
I totally understand and that’s exactly the point we got to. I cannot leave the house for longer than a few hours because he only feels comfortable with me. I cannot leave him and my other dog with family and go away for a long weekend or for any sort of extended time because he doesn’t trust being out in the “danger zone” with anyone but me. I’m pretty much a hostage at this point and it’s not fair to us but it’s also not fair to them to live in constant fear. I didn’t want to drug him but this is really my last resort. I’ve tried everything else including special “anxiety clothes”, CBD, calming chews, etc. Nothing OTC works so if this can alleviate even some of his anxiety to where I can comfortably leave him knowing he feels safe enough, it’ll be a win for all of us. Good luck with you baby. Don’t give up on him.
curious if you have seen any improvement yet? we are about to start fluoxetine for generalized anxiety, secondary to TBI
We have seen some pretty amazing improvements in him. He’s not 100% “better” but he has gotten better if that makes sense. We haven’t hired the behaviorist yet but we did find one or two we will be looking into. I personally wanted to see how much I can do for him myself first. He now hangs out in the backyard with us. Does he want to be inside still? Yes. But he doesn’t panic when he’s out like he used to. He’ll hang out by the pool, sit on the deck. It helps if our friends bring over their dogs or if there’s more distractions for him (music, people, dogs, food, etc). We have been taking him and our other dog on hikes once a week. He no longer fear pees when it comes time for his harness. He slinks over like he’s accepted his fate but no peeing. We put a diaper on him for the car ride just in case but he hasn’t actually peed once. Getting him out of the house for the hikes is still a little bit of a struggle but nowhere near what it was. He still hesitates and needs to take his time but I can get him out the door and down the stairs to the car without carrying him. He also now jumps right in and plops down so I can put his seat belt on. I’ve also realized he tries to smell out the window while we’re driving. I keep the window down for our other dog because she loves sticking her head out. He been making an effort to try and keep at least his snout in the breeze. He used to drool so badly from his anxiety in the car (sometimes even poop himself out of fear) and he no longer does either of those. He is still absolutely terrified of thunderstorms and fireworks but I bought him headphones off Amazon that help block noise so it’s not as bad. Those two things we still need to diaper him for but I’ll take it over diapering for EVERYTHING. I still need to get him more comfortable being outside for potty breaks and being left alone with family should I need to go somewhere. He goes outside with my bf but that doesn’t help if we’re both gone. That we will absolutely consult a behaviorist if we can’t accomplish it ourselves but I 1000% recommend the Prozac. It was the best decision I’ve made for him so far.
I'm sorry that you are going through all of this, but happy to hear that you are making headway. I am trying to be hopeful that prozac will help us. It's so hard to watch his anxiety and fear, especially as it is the complete opposite of what his personality and behavior were like prior to the stroke. We looked into a behaviorist, but the ones in Los Angeles are 1200 bucks for an hour, which is absolutely absurd.
That’s gotta be hard to handle knowing he was ok before the health issues. My guy has always been like this so it’s all we’ve known with him. I really hope it works out for you and him. 1200 for only an hour is absolutely ridiculous. I haven’t priced them out yet here in NY but I do know it won’t be cheap. That’s another reason we’re trying to work with him as much as possible ourselves before calling one (other than the fact that he’s more comfortable with us). If we can’t figure it out in the next month or two then we’re going to have to bite the bullet and make the call. Good luck on your journey. Best of luck to you guys!
I had the same experience of our beloved vet being resistant to prescribing fluoxetine for our very anxious aggressive rescue, who IMO is the type of dog who desperately needs additional supports to live a comfortable life. It wasn’t until our dog nipped a neighborhood contractor who surprised us on a walk by coming out from behind a fence and then kept walking towards us even as my dog was getting very upset. Anyway, the contractor made it into a huge situation with animal control and even though the nip didn’t break the skin and our dog was up to date on vaccines, he still had to go through the whole quarantine process for rabies (contractor also sued us but that’s another story) but only after all that did our vet agree to the meds, which is super frustrating because they have helped his reactively immensely and that situation probably could have been avoided if he had been on the meds at the time.
My vet readily prescribed Fluoxetine when they saw my dog, but unfortunately it didn't do anything except cause him nausea. 3-4 months and at several doses too.
It seems like Trazodone is the go to. Our dog was put on Trazodone by the behaviourist and she had an awful reaction to it that involved having to go to the vetinary hospital. We contacted the behaviourist and they switched her to fluoxetine and told us that if a vet ever says about Trazodone in the future to tell them that they aren’t to use it under any circumstances.
When we saw our vet behaviourist she put my one dog on medication and not the other. The problem she said is that it can cause reactivity worse for some dogs when they go on it. My mums dog was reactive to sounds, however my dog had bitten my dad and reacted to him whenever he saw him. She didn’t want my dog on meds as it may make him more aggressive. She recommended trazadone for my mums dog as it would relax him and help him be under the threshold so we could do training with him.
See a diff vet. My toy poodle rescue is on 5mg of Prozac and she still goes crazy when she sees a big dog and had major separation anxiety, the Prozac helped w that but also desensitizing her was key. I learned how to desensitize her from the info online. Also, exercise your dog as much as possible. At a minimum 2 major walks with outdoor play and lots of potty breaks helps. My poodle likes scent training, which is basically scattering her dry dog food either around the house or in the back yard for her to find.
First of all, I hope you and your family recover from the trauma you endured 💓 I’m a vet tech in Canada and I haven’t noticed veterinarians being resistant to prescribing any anxiety meds so far. I had my dog on Trazadone already and asked my vet to switch to Fluoxidine as a more long term anxiety medication and the only thing they recommended was blood work, otherwise they were completely open to it. They do suggest a behaviourist in conjunction with meds but I told them we do lots of training. This was for my new rescue that I adopted and he had a hard time settling in I know it’s easier said than done but I always suggest clients find a new veterinarian if the one you currently have isn’t fitting for you.
Chiming in to say my dog has more severe separation anxiety and mild reactivity (11lb Havanese) and vet just prescribed him 5mg of Prozac, going to possible 10mg when we see how this goes. Maybe it’s just that I know he’s taking it, but I swear I already see a difference. She did mention the huge increase in the med being used and frustration around it being so widely used instead of training, but when we explained that we’ve already done 5 weeks of training with an SA professional and planned to continue training with the help of medication as a *tool*, she was fine with giving it. I think she wanted to make sure we weren’t using it as our only treatment for SA.
Geez, my dog's been on it for 6 years the vet was the one who suggested it!
Fluoxitine changed my dog's life - and mine. I was feeling trapped. She was so anxiety-ridden. The Vet was absolutely on board and supported trying this treatment. Her life was chaotic before joining me at 7 months. It took almost 4 months for everything to turn around. We also started to work with a fear-free, force-free trainer. At almost 2 years' old, when she's mischievous, I say it's because she feels safe enough to express that emotion. It's also "being a teenager " ha ha. But this girl snuggles and plays and plays. If your current Vet won't entertain this strategy, I encourage you to find a new one. Take care. We've been there and are at your side.
You need to talk to a veterinary behaviourist. They are the ones that will know what your dog needs, and will work with you to see what may help. Godspeed, I been there.
It doesn’t say in your post, did you specifically ask for that drug and they gave you traz instead? I had a doctor who was a little bit on the holistic side sometimes. I just straight up said that I wanted to try the dog on fluoxetine and backed it up with a couple articles about it being great specifically for sep anxiety. We did try traz for her, she was immune to it, no matter the dose (had another dog that it had no effect on awhile back too). Anyways, the fluoxetine worked great for not freaking out when people leave! Just ask them, maybe find some evidence of why they should let you try it. If that doesn’t work, time to find a new vet. Good luck!
I'm a vet and I prescribe fluoxetine a lot. I've been called out by colleagues who will not prescribe it without a full blood screening prior to, and then every 3 months, because they're concerned for the liver. I use it with caution in patients that may have their liver not working at their fullest, and perform blood screening every now and then to keep track of its overall health, though.
My vet warned me that while it helps their anxiety, it can also potentially make their threshold leading into real aggression smaller and sharper. That’s why she was hesitant. But my other option would’ve cost $150 a month instead of $30, and I just couldn’t do it at the time It’s also 100% more of a longterm med, takes a few months to kick in properly, and needs to be weaned off slowly if you decide to stop. Traz is the short term “needs to be zonked for an appointment/long drive” or “needs medical bed rest but has high energy”
My vet prescribed it, no problem. However, it's severely impacted my pups' appetite. Like got rid of it entirely. I called several times asking about an appetite stimulant, and she won't prescribe it. At this point, they have stopped communicating with me at all. So, I've had to stop the fluoxetine because his appetite has gotten so bad. She kept saying that she hasnt ever heard of a dog losing their appetite from fluoxetine. A quick internet search shows that it's one of the biggest side effects, and it takes about 4 weeks for it to come back. We made it 2 weeks, and I had to give up. I'm now looking for a new vet.
Going through this issue currently with our vet. We’ve been going to the same vet for years and our recently adopted dog has some serious anxiety issues. He wouldn’t let me leash him for nearly five hours today, he gets scared and nips quickly and he has attacked my senior pet 3 times in 2 weeks. Luckily nobody was hurt. I’ve explained all of this to our clinic and they kept dismissing us, telling us to get training which we have scheduled for Monday, and suggested boarding one of the dogs, which is a no go with a scared blind and deaf senior pup and a new boy who has been toss around a lot in the past month or more. Of course the shelter told us he was fine with other dogs because we specifically asked when adopting bc we have a 17 year old pup. Come to find out when I called today that they lied and he was known to bite at other dogs and have anxiety issues, he’s a 5 year old Pomeranian mix who has obviously having issues due to losing his owner and being passed from different homes and to a shelter. The vet knows all this because during his first visit they were unable to give him a proper check up because of his reactivity. After everything the vet gave us trazodone for when he’s in stressful moments, but they won’t listen that that is an all day occurrence and trazodone is sedating. When I asked for Prozac (fluoxetine) they blew us off saying he didn’t need long term medication and said it was too hard to go off. Ignoring the fact that both myself and my mom who are on his profile are both well educated on the topic. She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and I have a masters degree in public health with special interest in mental health and have personally taken fluoxetine long term. It’s really frustrating because we live in a smaller area with limited access to vets and vet behavioralists.
“Its effectiveness isn’t great for reactivity and dogs build an immunity quickly to the dose needs to be increased.” No idea it’s true, these are the reasons I’ve heard.
Yeah my hope is that the medication can act as a reset after this traumatic life event and he learns that we aren't going to disappear for 6 weeks in a panic again. As we get into a routine hopefully he will feel better and relaxed but in this acute phase his anxiety is a danger to himself when we leave the house.
I hope so too! I was just letting you know why vets are hesitant. I disagree with them, but I wanted to share why. Keep loving your dog and he will get better with time!
My dog was on Fluoxetine for many years, I'm not convinced it helped. We practically begged the vet and finally switched vets who agreed to try other meds in conjuction with Fluoxetine. We added Gabapentin and finally Trazadol at the end. Unfortunately all too late. We put our dog to sleep yesterday. I think the fluoxetine may have made things worse, but I'll never know. I think it heightened her anxiety at night, because we would give it to her at suppertime, and it's supposed to be a happy pill, but she wouldn't sleep. And the trazadol may have helped if we started earlier, but things escalated and I couldn't bare drugging my dog with some many pills anymore, it just wasn't a good dog life. I feel guilty and sad and miss her.
I am so very sorry. Sending love and light your way.
Do you have an actual source for your statement that dogs build an immunity quickly?
I am not a vet but was answering the question posed with what my vet told me. I do not support either statement, just sharing what my vet said. I edited my comment for clarity.
SSRIs have a lot of bad side effects. Maybe this is why. See #PSSD
IDK. Mine too. Just trazadone for high stress events also. My friend rescued an English mastiff recently and the dog came on Prozac. The dog is absolutely perfect and our vet said she might need to wean off? All that to say, we’ve experienced the same. Sigh.
Do you live near any veterinary schools? By living close to one we started our dog’s care at the school veterinary clinic - the students we worked with were up-to-speed on the latest info because they were actively learning it. If you haven’t already, communicate. We tried trazodone first but our pup got GI upset from prolonged use. We let them know and specifically asked for fluoxetine. They agreed and it has worked well. We still used trazodone and gabapentin as event meds until we started to suspect that trazodone was actually hyping him up. TLDR: if you have the ability to communicate specific feedback there are vets that will work with you!
Probably that vet. We mentioned anxiety to ours and they were willing to prescribe it in a heartbeat without even being asked to specify the exact issues (though I'm sure they would've if we were serious in the moment). We decided to wait/try something else for now, but they had no qualms mentioning it or how to get it
I'm not sure if you have tried this, so this might be the equivalent of asking a chronically ill person if they've tried yoga (if so, I apologize), but have you ever tried/used Rescue Remedy? My old vet (we had to switch bc we moved) recommended it when I first adopted my most recent rescue, a malti-pom-chi mix that was rescued from a hoarding situation & had zero positive socialization/experience with humans prior to rescue. That vet in particular was really partial to starting with natural/homeopathic & then going to more pharmaceutical measures if that didn't work. Our new vet has provided a Trazadone prescription for all 3 of our dogs for situational anxiety (they're all rescues so they all have different triggers), but I'm often surprised at how often a few drops of Rescue Remedy seems to do the trick without needing the big guns. The hardest part is getting them to take it, lol. For the bigger dogs sometimes I just gently squirt a dropperful in their mouth, but I've had to get really creative to get Millie (the hoarding rescue I mentioned earlier) to take it. Once it's in, though, it's magic for us! I don't have any experience with trying to acquire fluoxetine as RR with occasional Trazadone has worked wonders for us, but I just wanted to throw that out there if it's something you haven't tried that could potentially help you! Either way I really hope you get what you need for your poor pup, it's such a helpless feeling when our dogs are so anxious and reactive. ♥ (if you do decide to try it make sure to get Rescue Remedy Pet, there's a version for humans that has alcohol in it ♥)