05/03/2022
When a trainer asks you to speak to your vet or a veterinary behaviorist about whether your dog may be a candidate for anti-anxiety medications:
Our goal is not to sedate your dog.
Our goal is not to turn your dog into a zombie.
Our goal is not to remove your dog’s personality.
Instead, our goal is to give you more tools to help your dog cope with the world. Our goal is to give your dog a better chance at recovering from sometimes pretty severe behavior problems.
There is still a HUGE stigma around giving dogs behavior medications, but the truth is that much like some humans, some dogs are born with brains that literally cannot create the chemicals needed to cope with life’s stressors. And some dogs go through such trauma that their brains change to the point where they also cannot cope.
If you went to a medical professional and they diagnosed your dog with diabetes, would you refuse insulin because maybe a diet change might work? All the while knowing your dog was physically unwell?
If your dog broke their leg, and you brought them to the vet, and they prescribed painkillers while your dog healed, would you withhold those painkillers because you feel like your dog should be able to heal without them?
Honestly, the chronic stress that sometimes effects our dogs can seriously impact their quality of life, and this stigma of “anxiety meds bad” is doing a lot of harm.
And if you’ve tried meds before but didn’t like how your dog was when they were on them? Have a dialogue with your vet, or seek out the help of a boarded veterinary behaviorist! There are a multitude of options available out there, and like in humans, some meds work better for certain individuals than others! Don’t let one bad experience sour you on all anti-anxiety medications, that’s like throwing the baby out with the bath water!
The last thing I wanted to say:
If you try anxiety medications for your dog you have NOT failed them. You are not “giving up”. It doesn’t make you, or your dog, weak, or bad, or less than. In fact, you’re a rock star advocate for your dog, and I applaud you for doing right by them.
Some dogs can’t produce enough of their own serotonin; for those dogs, store bought is often best ❤️
