Not without cause: the poor thing was a nervous wreck. Before he started getting medicated, he was afraid to go outside. He would cower at any loud or sudden noise. He’d always be following me so closely on my heels that I’d frequently trip over him, and when I’d go to the bathroom, he follow me in and hide in the shower. Any time we had company, he’d hide in my bedroom and refuse to come out until all the strangers were gone. Sometimes he just stand in the corner and shiver uncontrollably. And he’s not one of those eensy little vibrating dogs, either: he’s a Border Collie/Pyrenes mix. He’s a big dog; a work dog. How can a sheepherding dog be agoraphobic, f’rchrissake?
He hadn’t always been like that: when I first got him, he was energetic, frisky, and the friendliest dog I’d ever seen. He loved everyone he met: I could barely walk him, because he had to stop to say hello to everyone we passed. So, I knew something was different, and the vet recommended Prozac. Regular, honest-to-God people-Prozac. Exactly the same stuff they give humans with depression, although I assume the dosage is different.
And it works great. He’s the dog he used to be. He loves going outside, people come over and he immediately runs over to say “hi” and put his head in their lap for some ear-scratching. He’s improved 100%. Although, I hadn’t realized how little I’d missed all the barking. At least when he was depressed, he was quiet. Still, small price to pay. Unlike the Prozac itself, which is actually pretty pricey: a little over a buck a pill. People are dying in epidemic levels from AIDS throughout Africa because they can’t afford the vital, life-saving medicines to stave off their illness. But my dog is on anti-depressants. I can’t get over that. My dog is being treated for mental health issues.
Prozac has been shown to work really well in animals with anxiety disorders, indeed!
Yep, just like humans, they can have psychiatric issues… including sociopathy, which is kinda neat when you think about it - and I’ve only seen one such case in my dog-working career… a miniature schnauzer who, even as a puppy, was downright dangerous. The breeder had him put down. He was clinically psychotic.
For the anxious dog, though, Prozac works wonders. It’s one of the best drugs on the market!
I’m glad to hear your pooch is now back to his old self. It will help him rebuild confidence and learn new behaviors
Wufs and wags from the insane hounds of the nofair household!
Did he go from from frisky to paranoid almost overnight? Any idea what happened? Something traumatic or perhaps just some chemical change?
The whole thing sounds obsurd and funny to laugh about until I picture the poor thing huddled in the corner shivering. I’m so glad you found something that worked.
We have a dog who is on antidepressants as well, though I don’t remember exactly which one off the top of my head. Poor guy has anxiety problems and SERIOUS storm anxiety. The sort of problems that lead to dogs being put down. He’s a golden, and an absolute sweetheart, but he’s obviously the product of a puppy mill (my parents got him through a golden rescue org) and really shouldn’t have been bred. That being said, we adore him. And he’s gotten a lot better about storms than he used to be.
We had one of our cats (Boo, aka Commander Shit-For-Brains) on Prozac a few years back. He would spend at least half the day (and most of the night) staring fixedly at one particular spot high up on the wall, meowing at the top of his little kitty lungs. Mind you, there was nothing there, and he refused to listen to all reasonable attempts to explain that to him.
After awhile it became obvious – either we need an exorcism for the house, or the cat needed mental help. We took him to the vet, he prescribed happy pills, and after a few weeks, it was just another ordinary wall.
I had a springer spaniel who was so dang hyper that I couldnt answer the front door without a major fiasco ensuing. They say the breed is tough for 2 years because of this very high activity level, and training them is a lesson in persistance and patience, but once they hit that age, it breaks and hey are easier to manage. It was true and well worth the wait, because he was truly an amazing dog. But, in the sake of comtemplating medicating our pets as we do ourselves, I was often tempted to slip him a Ritalin when I realized he had the same DSM characteristics as my ADHD son. :S of course I didnt.
Hmmm, I wonder if anti-depressants would help my Jasmine? She is also a very anxious dog. She’s very frightened of strangers, and after two years of living in my home, where she is NEVER mistreated, she still jumps and cowers at sudden movement or loud noise. She’s gotten better, she used to run and pee, but I still hate to see her like that.
No, it was pretty gradual. Started with him balking at going for walks, and progressed from their. We’ve had him since he was a little over a year and a half, after he was dropped off at a veterinarians to be fixed, and never retrieved. Nothing traumatic has happened to him since then, but who know how his former owner treated him? Still, it seems odd that it would take about two years (how long we’d had him before this started) for anything to manifest, but what do I know about doggy psychology?
I’ve heard that human PTSD and other trauma-induced mental illnesses can take years after the inital trauma to manifest themselves. If dogs can take the same drugs as us, it’s probably not a major stretch to imagine their trauma-induced mental illnesses can develop similarly to ours.
Our Bassett Hound is on an anti-anxiety drug (Clomicalm) to deal with her fear of the world… We got her as a rescue dog - she was the mother in a puppy mill… and when we first got her 7 years ago, she was afraid of almost EVERYTHING… When we would open the back door to let her out in the morning, if there was any wind, she would RUN back in and hide… If she was eating food and someone made a noise in the room, she would hide and not eat the rest of the day…
We had to fight with various vets to put her on pills… They kept trying to tell us she needed “behavioral therapy”, but the poor thing had had a horrifying life for years, and we could tell it was going to take more than that… Our friends still joke about our “insane” dog… who jumps up our bed and hides under the covers whenever someone (other than me) comes into the house…
After 7 years, she isn’t afraid of the wind any more… She is still scared of many things, but I think overall, the drugs have helped her… It’s really wonderful to see her calm sometimes and wagging her tail, playing like a… well… like a dog…
I figure anyone can adopt a normal dog, but if we hadn’t gotten our dog, she probably would have been put to sleep… and she deserved to have at least some joy in her life after years of hell…
Now wait a minute here. These are obviously animals with character flaws. They are just weak, spoiled, and lazy. They are drama queens who want lots of attention and will do anything to get it. Why can’t they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps? It’s an attitude problem! They need to quit feeling sorry for themselves and get over it! Why don’t they just get out and get some exercise! Get a hobby! Get a job!
I am trying to imagine our sweet, cuddly, dumb as a box of rocks Rusty with a job and utterly failing. He’s come about as far as we think is possible for him; when storms (or just fronts, without storms, there’s something about the air pressure) come through, he usually goes under somebody’s desk and quivers. Or if you’re in the den he’ll get on the sofa with you and quiver. Since he once took out a bedroom door in panic, I’d say he’s VASTLY improved. He’s not scared of people, thank goodness, rather the opposite.
Rusty is on Clomicalm, too, and we get it courtesy of 1-800-PETMEDS for less than 1/3 the price the vet wanted to charge. Just a suggestion.
We also found that an Anxiety Wrap[sup]TM[/sup] helped a lot with storms – in Rusty’s case his storm anxiety is apparently caused by a hypersensitive nervous system, and the Anxiety Wrap[sup]TM[/sup] put pressure on him in ways that, somewhat to our surprise, really worked. It got so he was actually happy to see us approaching with the Wrap because he knew it would make him feel better. After about a year of putting it on him regularly, plus working on adjusting his medication dose, plus his growing up a bit (he’s now about 3-1/2, best as we can geuss), we didn’t need to use the Wrap any more. He just runs to a person, clings, and hides by their feet when the electrical activity sets him off. (And it’s not thunder – it’s the pre-storm barometric changes that does it.)
Like whiterabbit said, he’s probably a puppy mill product and definitely never going to be anything approaching normal, but with the meds he’s managed to (a) settle down to where he’s happy ALL the time except when there are storms coming, and (b) develop an appetite so he’s gained the 20 pounds he needed and now looks like a normally-proportioned dog instead of just a painfully thin quivering bundle of nerves.
Ain’t it amazin’ what animals who walk upright and call themselves human will subject other animals to? Why not, they’re just dogs (cats/rabbits/hamsters/fish)?
Almost forgot! The best thing about Prozac is, apparently, dogs like how it tastes. Or at least, my dog does. I don’t have to hide in a lump of butter or shove my hand half-way down his throat to get him to swallow it: he eats it right out of my hand. It’s both endearing and hassle-free! Two things that go together almost as well as chocolate and peanut butter.
