Prozac experience anyone?

[Sirwhiskey]

I found some old postings that suggested some people on this forum have used prozac with their BC. I was hoping to hear some stories about its effectiveness - how long until you saw results? How good were the results? Any details would be great.

 

We have been working with a very fear aggressive BC puppy who is turning 6 months. He has been fear aggressive since we got him at 9 weeks. We have seen vets and 2 different trainers and done board and train to work on his fear aggression. The vet just put him on a low dose of Prozac and we are continuing with a very intense behavior modification program. We have seen some progress (without the prozac, just from the BMP) as he doesn't growl at strangers walking by much now. He still cannot be pet by anyone outside the family though and he is still dog reactive unless he has had time to build trust with the dog (he did fine with the trainers pack of dogs at board and train). We are hoping that the Prozac will lower some of his anxiety and therefore increase our ability to get him to relax as we continue our behavior modification program. He has only taken 3 doses so far and I know it can take a while to start working but I was wondering if anyone started to see any small improvements after just 1 week or if we will need to wait many weeks?

 

Has anyone used Prozac with BMP to help with fear/anxiety/aggression and what were your results?

 

I would also ask that people who feel a dog should not be placed on meds to leave that conversation alone, our pup's situation is so severe that we need to do everything we can or he might need to be euthanized so we are making what we feel are choices in his best interest based on consultations with professionals who know our dog and his situation. Thanks for understanding.

[urge to herd]

My experience is with another medication for anxiety, clomipramine. It did take several weeks for us to see a difference, and I understand that this is true for fluoxetine as well.

 

We noticed a substantial difference in our girl. It really showed up when a friend with Tourette's syndrome visited. Shoshone would leave the room when this friend was around, our friend's exclamations and sudden moves really upset her. Shonie had been on clomipramine for about 6 weeks when our friend came over. The friend tossed a cookie in Shonie's direction, and all of a sudden the friend had a border collie on her lap! We decided with the help of our vet and a behaviorist to keep her on the drug for the rest of her life. It seriously improved the quality of her life. She relaxed more readily and was much more 'no big deal' with life in general. Shonie was never aggressive towards humans, but she was an anxious and stand-offish girl. The drug made a big difference.

 

Make sure you keep him on the recommended dosage at the recommended intervals. It has to build up in the dog's neurological systems to make any changes. It's not a situational medication, it's a long term one. If you don't see any difference in your boy in 6 weeks, see if you can try a different drug. From experiencing my personal search for a medication that worked for me, I can tell you that sometimes you have to try a few different ones.

 

You'll get no argument from me about the usefulness of anti-anxiety meds for dogs! Good luck with your boy.

 

Ruth and Agent Gibbs

[Liz P]

I have used it along with training and think it's made a huge difference. It's not a cure, but a tool that allowed the training and behavior modification to be effective. It generally takes several weeks to notice any changes at all as far as the drug. However, seeing a major change in the dog takes years of hard work. (I was giving him a combo of fluoxetine, trazadone and clonidine, now he is on relatively low dose of fluoxetine daily and clonidine as needed, such as for storms.)

 

Five years ago I couldn't get within 100 yards of a strange person or dog without my fear aggressive dog blowing up. Just a few months ago he ran in his first ever sheepdog trial at a very public venue. Last weekend he competed at the MA Sheep and Wool Festival, and before that at the NH S&W Festival. (Crowds, lots of noise, etc.) He hesitates when he gets near the setout person, but otherwise there are no outward signs that he isn't your average competitor. I never would have thought that was possible. However, he is not now nor will he ever be normal.

 

By far, the MOST important part of his rehab was showing him that he could trust me 100% to never put him in harm's way.

[mbc1963]

Interesting question!

 

I have no opinions pro or con about anti-anxiety meds, because I have no experience. But the previous poster could be talking about my dog. I have no idea if he was born reactive, or if his two years as a street dog made him that way - I suspect it was the genetics compounded by the environment. When I first got Buddy, I had never heard about people's using meds - I think I might have tried them to help me deal with his great fear.

 

This past Saturday morning, I was walking Buddy next to two dogs he knew and two he did not know. The two who didn't know him were a bit reactive and "in his face." Meanwhile, he strolled alongside them, looking for all the world like a normal dog. Eight years ago, he would have been growling and snapping and unmanageable.

 

I didn't use meds for my dog, but the slow, long-term approach has just gradually pushed the "everything is terrifying" out of him and left him relatively mellow. It was all about his trusting ME, and then learning to trust the world. Space and time and familiarity allow one thing at a time to become normalized. It takes years for the world entire to become normalized.

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

[Blackdawgs]

Yes, I used (use) prozac on a now 8 year old BC that was diagnosed with generialized anxiety disorder by a veterinary behaviorist in 2008. She was very dog reactive. In the old days, it would literally take hours for the dog to come back to earth after seeing a trigger. These days the dog probably seems pretty normal to most people and started competing in agility this past year. We did not think that she would ever be able to do agility around other dogs.

 

The prozac leveled the highs and lows and allowed her to come back to earth faster after being exposed to a trigger. Basically, it provided a window that allowed me to do behavior modification. The prozec also mitigated the generaliazed anxiety. It takes 6 weeks for prozac to reach therapeutic dosages. There are side effects of drowsiness and loss of appetitate. I think that any effects that you are seeing now are probably due to the drowsiness (goes away over time).

 

Since your pup is so young and the case is so severe, I would recommending consulting with a vet behaviorist. Your dog may need a cocktail and because the dog is still growing the dose will need to be adjusted as the pup gains weight. If there is not a DVM behaviorist local to you, Karen Overall at Penn and Nichlas Dodds at Tufts do long distance consults.

 

By behavioral modifical, I mean desensitization and conterconditioning. There are trainers that perform "behavior modification" using other means that frequently are not very nice or involve flooding.

[CLW1]

I've got a now 12 year old BC that I gave Prozac for about a year (2010-2011). He developed anxiety from noises that he heard. I could never tell exactly what he was hearing and it seemed to change (one time it was the tv, sometimes a door closing at a neighbors house, etc...but tornado sirens didn't phase him a bit). I'd moved to an area that was tightly packed suburbia and that's when the anxiety started. He was on the Prozac for about 6 weeks before I saw a change in his behavior re: anxiety. I didn't like the fact that the Prozac sort of took away his spark though. When I took him off the Prozac he didn't regress but I also moved and he wasn't living among all of the suburban noise any more. Now we're back in suburbia and he's once again reacting to sounds but he's not to the point where I'm going to put him back on any meds.

[D'Elle]

The only experience I have had was a foster dog who came to me, from the home that relinquished him, on Prozac. Apparently he had been on it for over a year, prescribed by a vet who never even met the dog (!). He was anxious and forlorn. I immediately took him off the prozac, and he became happy and relaxed. All of the terrible things that he was reported to have done and all the bad behaviors that he had had in his previous home (I spoke extensively with the former owner) never manifested in my home.

D'Elle

[jvw]

I had planned to use Prozac in conjunction with Xanax for Seamus' fear and anxiety of fireworks. I had planned to start the Prozac a month before the daily fireworks started, beginning of May. Unfortunately the fireworks started in April. So I started the Prozac then. In our case they made him worse! He became a bowl of jello and was so fearful he was glued to my leg. So we discontined the Prozac. We will still continue the xanax on really active firework nights. Interestingly he seems to be more manageable this year. He hears them and he looks to me to take him in so he can go to his hidey hole.

[rushdoggie]

My dog is not on Prozac, but he is on (generic) Zoloft. He is being treated by a veterinary behaviorist due to fear aggression and generalized anxiety. He was always great with dogs but was often terrified and panicked if strange humans got too close and his definition of "too close" was actually not all that close. He would be so freaked out it was impossible to get anywhere with counter-conditioning because he was too wound up to learn anything.

 

It took 6 weeks to see a result, but I am seeing positive changes. Hes not magically unafraid, but he is able to be in an attentive learning mode within a much smaller radius, and other non human things that used to upset him like vacuums don't freak him off as much.

[Root Beer]

I also have experience, not with prozac, but with clomipramine, and I'll echo what everyone else is saying. It took about six weeks to start to notice results, and I actually didn't see the full benefit for a couple of months. But it has made all the difference in the world to my dog who can now recover from attacks of anxiety.

[Tommy Coyote]

_{Most of the SSRI drugs take several weeks to begin to work. Sometimes it takes several months. A few years ago my OCD flaired up and got so bad I was afraid that I would not be able to work. I started on Prozac and I could tell a difference pretty fast but it took a full 8 months for my OCD to really get better. Then I was able to go back off the prozac and I've been kind of OCD free for probably a year.}

 

_{It really helped and it's pretty cheap if you get the generic.}

[Tuxedodog]

I briefly gave Prozac to my BC with separation anxiety, and he became a very fearful zombiedog. Clomipramine was much more effective, but over a period of a couple of years, I had to regularly increase the dosage.