Jump to content
The Dogmother

Dog on drugs!

Recommended Posts

As some of you know, Ruby (one of my lurchers) is a merle collie cross and lives life on the edge, being rather highly strung. After an 'event' early on with some yobs and fireworks, she has become increasingly terrifed of loud noises, and fireworks in particular.

 

Over the years, I have tried everything including CDs, plug ins, collars, homeopathic remedies, thunder shirts, TTouch... the list is endless. We've had to resort to Valium now :( and it appears to be having a result, although we've yet to launch into the full salvo of bangs. I need to adjust the dose down a bit, as their lack of body fat makes lurchers over-sensitive to medication, but she has a few side effects; increased appetite, clumsiness and an irrational fear of the kitchen bin :roll:

 

I am hoping that plenty of positive reinforcement while she is stoned will help her when I stop the tablets, but I am missing my clever, edgy dog :(

 

Does anyone else have experience of this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dog Cody a crossbreed is terrified of fireworks, thunder, bird scarer's, guns of any sort - even toy ones that just go click, he always has been...fire works are the worse and we have tried the radio, rescue remedy and are about to try homeopathic medicine so far we haven't had many fireworks but this weekend will be different. My biggest fear is if one goes off when we are out as he will just run and run, I am keeping him in when dark but you just never know....I am sure one year he will have a heart attack I am hoping perhaps his hearing will get worse instead !!!!

 

I hope Ruby is OK but sooner this week is over the better.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Our eldest dog Kia has to be on the dopey pills too :(

 

She was fire-bombed by next doors fireworks when she was tiny (they probably didn't do it on purpose - probably) and she's never forgotten. Gets uptight even if it's just fireworks or anything going bang on telly. Because she's the pack leader, the others get upset as well, even though they don't really know what they're getting upset about :roll:

 

Kia's currently very sleepy and a bit wobbly on her pills, and sometimes you can see her trying to think through the fog and finding it really hard. She definitely loses her clever edge when she's on drugs - doesn't even try to steal anyone else's dinner :shock:

 

We started her on them last weekend and will have to go to at least Sunday. Hopefully we'll get our cunning, conniving, devious pack leader back next week :pray:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By way of an update....

 

While the Valium definitely takes the edge off her fear and reactivity, it isn't without side effects, and I'm not sure that they are worth the trade-off :( she displays obsessional behaviour: over eating and drinking, obsessional licking, some urinary incontinence, clumsiness to the point of injury etc.

 

I think we'll look at something different next year - hopefully this lot of fireworks is over until the next event/party/wedding

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cody did really well, bonfire night was a bit of a disaster because I took him out as all was quiet and it was raining and soon as we got down the road we seemed surrounded by fireworks but at the weekend we took him on two long walks in the day and gave him an enormous bone during the day(the idea was to keep him awake as much as possible so that he was tired out ) , then some rescue remedy and we let him in with us to watch TV, he was upset but no where near as bad as before....we have also been really lucky in that no direct neighbours have had fire works and the nearest have been about 5 doors away.....now just to wait for New Year.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...