Stay at Home Dog

Since Netta has arrived the dogs and I have had our schedule drastically changed.  No longer are we all going to work every day.  Work involved many stressers for the Toller.  Two long car rides.  Staying in the cubicle area while Mom abandoned him to train the service dogs.  Seeing favorite coworkers come in for the day and not always being able to hang out with them.  Then seeing coworkers pack up to head home and thinking he may be left all alone..forever!  Really most of Vito's anxieties at work boiled down to me not being able to be with him the majority of the day.  He would have been a very relaxed dog if he could just sleep at my feet all day.  Drugs helped.  And helped with the car rides too.  Really Vito was doing pretty well with the situation and his current drugs.  But still daily stress.

And now Vito is a stay at home dog.  A very relaxed stay at home dog. Mom is always there.  Car rides are way less frequent and usually very short.  Happy Toller.

So relaxed that I've weaned Vito off of both his "situational" drugs that were given twice every day. No more Clonidine, his favoritest drug that you could always tell when 2:30 rolled around at work and it was time for another dose.  Vito would definitely tell you he needed his Clonidine!  And no more Clonazepam, the latest of numerous drugs rotating in and out of his life.  Of course if Vito does have to go on a car ride for some reason I'm keeping the drugs around to well actually use situationally.  How novel.

And at this point I'm still keeping Vito on his base drug, which currently is Sertraline.  I'm not sure if I should keep him on it or not.  A part of me hopes that maybe Vito could get used to being left alone again for short periods of time.  Perhaps without the daily stressers in the other areas he will be able to handle it.  His separation anxiety has always been his biggest issue.  But at one point, several years ago, Vito was able to be left alone for a few hours.  With the help of drugs of course.