Well that didn't work!

After meeting with the Veternarian Behaviorist in November, we had discussed lowering Vito's Prozac dose.  He was on 40mg once daily which was a very high dose for his body weight.  Well I finally decided to make the plunge and lower it to 30mg 3 weeks ago and then we waited to see if any changes would occur with his separation anxiety.

Nothing at first.  Then Vito started to act a little restless when left alone.  No longer sleeping but flopping around on the bed, moving positions every 2 minutes.  Because of the Holidays I was off of work and not leaving him for too long so I wasn't sure if he would relax more if left for a full 2hrs or longer.  I got my answer this past week and it wasn't one I wanted to hear.

The footage of Vito left for 2hrs and 40min was not pretty although since he left the bedroom all I had was sound to go off of..  He started howling again, and actually started at 40min.

Needless to say we upped Vito back to 40mg the next day.  The main downside is that being on such a high dosage effects what other medications Vito can be on.  Our Plan B for car anxiety was Trazodone and that is now officially ruled out.

On the positive side, the Clonidine is doing a great job at managing his car anxiety.  He was still alternating between very calm in the car and somewhat anxious on .25mg given just before car rides so we recently switched to giving it twice a day, every day, at .2mg.  Knock on wood, he hasn't had any panic attacks since the switch 6 days ago.

Amy / Layla the Malamute  – ( January 5, 2012 at 12:03 AM )  

Poor Vito! 40mg is one of the higher dosages, even for humans. That's the highest individual strength per capsule, not counting the 90mg weekly dose.

Because I was reading all the drug names, I was in my work frame of mind (working at the pharmacy) so when you mentioned your Plab B for the car, I got confused for a minute. Plan B is the morning after pill, so it took me a second to think, "why the hell are they giving Vito THAT?!"

Good luck finding a perfect balance for him!

Dexter  – ( January 5, 2012 at 5:45 AM )  

So frustrating that one has to wait and wait and wait to see if a dosage change is going to work. I worry about pharmacy lady in the comment above. Trazodone is an anti anxiety medication.

Whatever. This is painful to watch and I am sure 10 times more vexing to live with.

Mango Momma

Ninso  – ( January 5, 2012 at 9:10 AM )  

Good to know that 40mg is the dose he needs, and I am glad to hear the Clonidine is working well! I would be interested to know what effect Trazodone would have. Since it has a general calming effect, maybe you could decrease the Prozac and make up the difference with Trazodone if you end up needing to try it? Since Trazodone works within a day or two, it would be pretty quick to find out whether it works for him.

Jun just went up to 25mg of Clomipramine twice a day instead of once a day. So far so good.

Since your comment on my last blog post seems to have disappeared...the trick I picked for Jun is balancing a treat on her nose! I am reasonably confident about this one. She knows a chin target to my hand, so I'm going to spend some time getting some duration on it. Then work on touching her nose with my finger. Then work on putting the treat there. Then work on removing the chin target.

I am interested though--how are you teaching frog legs? None of my dogs do this naturally and I would have no idea how to shape it. A rear-foot target in a down maybe?

Laura and The Corgi, Toller, & Duck  – ( January 5, 2012 at 9:34 AM )  

I'm not sure if she other drugs in mind now if the Chlondindine doesn't work or not. I would consider lowering the Prozac again to try Trazodone if needed, but it takes awhile for the Prozac to be out of his system so there would be some lapse before I could start a new drug :(

Kathy Mocharnuk  – ( January 5, 2012 at 4:31 PM )  

That is so hard finding the right doseage and what works just right, your doggies are lucky to have someone working hard to get it all just right ;-)

Lindsay  – ( January 6, 2012 at 9:13 AM )  

Poor guy and poor you! I can't even imagine what it would be like to go through all of this. I'm glad that you seem to be finding a combination that's working for the mean time. A little relief is definitely good.

Unknown  – ( January 8, 2012 at 7:40 PM )  

Oh dear. So sorry to hear that the lower dose didn't work out! :-( It must be SO frustrating for you. Glad to hear that the car rides are still manageable though. I just hope you manage to find some other way around the higher dose...

Hsin-Yi

Achieve1dream  – ( January 23, 2012 at 9:24 AM )  

Poor Vito! At least the medication works, even though the dose is high. I'm glad the new medicine taken daily is helping with his car anxiety. :)

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