When Lilly became so dangerously ill nearly a year ago, we abandoned her anxiety meds because of their dampening effect on her now troubled brain. And, we essentially stopped working on dog training issues. These days, I ask her for very little, and the results are these.
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A blaring alarm jolted me out of bed Monday morning. I squeezed our morning dog-care routine into as little time as possible, before putting on many layers to brave the extreme cold. Alas, I ended up cancelling Lilly’s neurology exam. Here is our frustrating tale.
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Deep inside Lilly remains Lilly — despite the brain and nervous system trauma caused by her adverse reaction to a rabies vaccine earlier this year. Her emergency treatment and ongoing treatment for meningoencephalomyelitis / meningoencephalitis, however, required she go off (cold turkey) the meds we gave her for years to treat her fears / anxieties. So, how has that turned out?
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Lilly and I apologize for the sudden, unexplained absence from blogging these last two weeks. Due to a new and difficult stage in our eldercare responsibilities, we cannot promise it won’t happen again, but we’ll do our best to keep afloat and provide some entertainment.
If you’ve not yet LIKE’d our Champion of My Heart Facebook Fan Page, where we sometimes report on such life events, we’ll catch you up on the backstory behind our absence:
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Rather than write a single comprehensive dog product review of the ThunderShirt, I’m going to write a series of reports over time so that, together, we can work through the ups and downs for our fearful canine heroine.
After last Friday’s post, where I first raised the question of ThunderShirt expectations and results, a helpful discussion got underway both in the blog comments section and on our Champion of My Heart Facebook Fan Page. Huge thanks to everyone who weighed in with how the ThunderShirt did (or did not) help their dog.
I alluded to the fact that our real-world test of the ThunderShirt wasn’t going as well as I had hoped. Here are some additional, early, details.
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I could use some help establishing expectations about Lilly’s ongoing struggle with anxiety. Living with a fearful dog can be a day-to-day, minute-by-minute thing, and I’m used to that. However, I’m trying to get a grip on what I can and cannot expect going forward as well as what shifts in dog behavior matter at this point.
Come May, Lilly will be 8 years old. That means we’re 7 1/2 years into her fearful dog reality as a member of our family and a good 5 years since we saw a major shift in her fearful behavior as she reached social maturity (around age 2 – 2 1/2).
In summer 2008, 8ur dog behavior modification work (combined with dog anxiety medications) got underway in earnest (after a couple of years of trying herbal and other scent-based remedies). This includes the Dog Relaxation Protocol MP3 files for which we are now famous for recording and providing FREE downloads.
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Almost immediately after putting Lilly back on a full dose of her dog anxiety medications, we saw a dramatic change in her behavior.
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Earlier, I shared some new dog behaviors that cropped up after we dropped Lilly’s evening dose of chlomipramine. Others of more concern began to worsen as the levels of meds in her system dropped for real after 6 weeks on a lower dose. So … we’ve decided …
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After our one and only dog training class in public this year (over Thanksgiving), Amy from GoPetFriendly.com, pet travel made easy, asked an important question: “As long as we can navigate our daily lives without outbursts, I don’t really need to push [Buster's] boundaries. Have I just lost my motivation or gotten lazy? Have you ever felt the same way about Lilly?”
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For about 6 weeks now, Lilly’s chlomipramine dose has been just 75 mg ONCE a day (in the morning). We’ve dropped the nighttime dose. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but some new behaviors have cropped up. Now, I’m having doubts about the dog behavior meds decision.
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As a special Thanksgiving week event, we’ll be posting a few of our favorite videos of Lilly, our canine heroine, each day. Whether you’re seeing them for the first time (welcome, new readers) or get the chance to enjoy these reruns, we send our best holiday wishes. Today, Lilly on her home agility course.
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It started out as a necessity. Swamped with deadlines and a work trip on the docket, I didn’t realize Lilly was getting low on her medicine. To stretch it a bit longer, I skipped her evening dose of clomipramine (antidepressant that targets her generalized fears) for a few days. I kept it up, however, even after her prescription refill arrived.
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A couple Sundays ago, I took Lilly with me to visit my mom, who remains in the rehabilitation section, after the heart scare in August. Lilly did struggle with a few things, but one nice comment from my mom’s roommate made it all worthwhile. (Sorry, I forgot my camera, so no pictures.)
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Lilly got her staples out a week ago Wednesday. That part went fine, but Lilly had a little trouble in the parking lot and in the reception area before taking refuge in our own exam room. Every day is different when you live with a fearful dog … even when she has xanax in her system.
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Maybe letting Lilly sleep in “the big bed” with us Tuesday night telegraphed that something was up. Maybe my ability to keep my worries to myself failed … because Lilly shook so hard with fear that the dog scale at the veterinary hospital sounded like an 18-wheeler going over a cattle grate.
It broke my heart, causing big, rolling tears to pour off my face and into Lilly’s fur as I tried to tell her that everything was going to be OK.
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