The Streak is Over
And just like that Vito is back to where he was. We made it past the 2 month mark of zero car anxiety trips and almost 5 whole months of very few panic attacks.
All came crashing back this last week. Just as quickly as his decision those 5 months ago to suddenly be OK. I can't say that I'm surprised as it's not like his recent calmness was explainable by any medication change or training change. Unfortunately even before his nice change this last November Vito was mainly only panicking on morning car rides and was OK on afternoon car rides. Currently Vito is stressing out on both.
And sadly along with the return of car anxiety Vito is also getting worse at work again. More "nutty" and more whining when left. Not horrible yet and not all the time, but it had been so long since Vito has had a bad day at work. In some respects Vito is even continuing his nuttiness at home with more frequent stress zooming and panting episodes in the evening.
Now we're left at the decision of what to do. Since Christmas I have been very, very slowly lowering Vito's 3rd (most expensive) drug Clorazepate. He's gone from 1.5pills x2/day to getting only 1/2 a pill in the morning and 1/4tha pill in the afternoon. Lowered afternoon dose first as usually afternoons are better than mornings, wait 3-4wks, and then lowered morning, wait 3-4wks, repeat. For the most part the lowering went super smooth without me noticing any change in his behavior until he got to 1/2 a pill in the morning on March 1st. That first week was hard on Vito. Car anxiety didn't return, but reactivity was greatly increased. And then he got better. March 27th was my last change which brought the afternoon dose to our current 1/4th pill. No change was seen the last two weeks until April 9th.
I could try increasing back the dose of his Clorazepate despite the fact that lowering it didn't seem to make much of a difference. And it sucks how much more expensive it is.
I could try increasing his Sertraline slightly as Vito's not at his maximum dose yet.
We could just wait and see how he progresses over the next week or two.
No idea if they use it for dogs, but the medication that has made a difference for my anxiety is daily gabapentin and hydroxyzine as needed (I take it 1-2 hours beforehand if I know something that triggers anxiety is going to be happening). The first med is normally prescribed as a pain medication, and the second is apparently a kind of antihistamine. Obviously you may not want to try changing things up that much, but I thought I would mention a combo that has worked for me.
Awww that sucks!!!! :(