Anxiety
Anxiety comes in many symptoms, forms, and for a variety of causes. We are happy to work together with you to create a plan best suited for your pet to help manage life's scary moments.
Overview
Below you will find some initial references to read about canine anxiety and some behavior modification that can be tried at home. The petMD article linked below does a good job of describing the types of anxiety dogs can suffer from and the VCA article is a good general overview on anxiety as well:
The article below goes into more specifics on only separation anxiety and some solutions to consider at home:
Management
We have listed these in our recommended order of trial, but we can discuss different options together (example training and a supplement) if you would be interested. We have a lot of patients that start with supplements to see if they are sufficient to stabilize behavior before turning to prescription medications. You can use daily supplements, then simply add in the specific situational medication for those "special events" as needed. Just like humans, every animal can react differently to supplements and medications, so it can take some tweaking to get the correct combinations. With whichever course we choose to take, we will make only 1-2 changes at a time to be able to determine what is working well for your pet versus if there is not much of a difference.
Linked below are two good articles that review some of the main supplements and anti-anxiety medications available for veterinary use.
1. Supplements:
Thunder Ease Products: A synthetic pheromone that mimics the natural pheromone that mother dogs excrete when they nurse to calm their puppies. It is available as a collar, spray or diffuser. Based on your current situation, we would recommend you first try the diffuser.
Bach Rescue Remedy: A herbal extract used for anxiety. Be sure to get the Rescue Remedy For Pets, as it is also formulated for other species.
Calming Comfort Pro: Made by Standard Process, Calming Comfort Pro is a calming supplement for dogs and cats designed to promote relaxation and nervous system health using whole food-based ingredients.
Solliquin Calming Support: Solliquin® is a non-sedating calming support supplement that is intended for daily use in dogs and cats of all sizes. It is formulated with a patented combination of ingredients: L-theanine, Magnolia and Phellodendron extracts, and NMXSLQ05® whey protein concentrate.
2. Daily Prescription Medication:
When we start to think of long term medications we have a couple of paths to go down. From this list we most commonly turn to Alprazolam (Xanax) or Trazodone for the "situational" stressful events. For everyday medications, we would instead look at Fluoxetine (Prozac) or Clomipramine (Anafranil). Typically, before we start these "every day medications," we'd want to check routine bloodwork to be sure all internal organs are functioning up to par and will be able to process these medications appropriately.