Anyone used medications for anxious/aggressive dog?

[40andlovelife]

The vet has offered us medications to try with our dog who gets aggressive when he is outside, probably to due fear.

Anyone have any experience of using these? I am dubious to be honest

Some posters on here do use them.

Personally, I never could - particularly not with fear aggression. A dog reacts to communicate its emotions and I think it’s cruel to silence a dogs main form of communication. Even if all other avenues (behaviourist, trainer etc) have been used, I couldn’t do it.

Maybe I’m a bit nutty, but I think if you’ve gotten to the point you have to drug a pet to calm them then you’re probably in the position where you should ask yourself if the dogs really living a good life. Sorry, I’m sure that’s not the what you want to hear but IMO there’s a huge difference in medicating a dog who has a particular trigger (vet visits, for example) and drugging a dog for wider behavioural issues. In all honesty, I have little respect for vets who suggest the latter.

What have you tried? You say possibly due to fear so you don’t know why it is. You’ve presumably ruled out physical issues. Have you seen a decent behaviourist.

Yes, we do. We have a lovely, lovely dog who is quite anxious in certain circumstances. Fireworks, being approached by dogs when on lead within a short distance of our house, and loud noises/dogs barking outside our house. He was a puppy that we got the December before lockdown, so his socialisation was curtailed to some extent, but I think it's just his personality.

Extremely sociable off-lead, loves (and is loved) at daycare, gets on fine with our younger dog and, contrary to the poster's assertion above, has a very happy and lovely life. We've worked with a behaviourist to some effect, but eventually decided to add the medication, although we continue to work with the behaviourist.

I won't say it's been a complete answer, but I do think it's reduced the anxiety to the extent that the work with the behaviourist is more rewarding.

It really doesn't silence them. It just ever so slightly takes the edge off, which allows us to use the behavioural techniques, whereas before his adrenaline was so high so fast, we couldn't. His fundamental personality and reactions are still the same.

Comfortable well fitting muzzle?At least other dogs won’t get attacked and no drugs involved.

One of mine is on fluoxetine - it’s an antidepressant and used in dogs for various anxiety issues, it absolutely doesn’t sedate or drug them in that sense at all, it basically ups the seratonin levels so they have more normal reactions to things.

He also has trazadone for vets visits which very much does sedate him though.

Its not a magic cure for anything, what it has done is make him more receptive to training because he’s not as stressed out all the time.

But if you don’t know for definite what’s causing the behaviour you really want to get help with that first, I tried a couple of trainers first and he’s not my first reactive dog so what we ended up with was some very particular triggers that we just couldn’t get any progress with even though I knew we were doing the right sort of things with him, so I got a referral to a vet with a behavioural specialism and after he’d assessed him he agreed with me and we trialled the drugs.

If you’re starting at the point of - you have a behavioural issue and don’t know why or what to do, you’d really want a vet check up first and then a referral to a vet that’s also a behaviourist. They can then do training advice, check for things like pain and then prescribe drugs if they think that’s the way to go.

Try Zylkene - it's natural ingredients and gets good results in reducing anxiety. However if your dog is showing agression I would work with a behaviourist as well as the drugs won't solve the issues.

The medication is not to sedate the dog. It helps to prevent the fear and anxiety.

It should not be seen as a long term solution but used alongside behavioural modification can make a major difference to many dogs.

Personally I would not just give the medication to my dog just based on a vets opinion I would want vet and qualified behaviourist to work together to ensure there is a behaviour modification program used alongside the medication.