Looking for a support group

ShelCras

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and reaching out to your community for support. Here's my story:

2 years ago we adopted Diesel, we knew he had a bad past but were willing to work with him to help him trust again. We've worked with behaviourists and didn't get anywhere. At first we thought we were doing something wrong but our other dog responded very well and our trainers assured us to just stick with it.

After almost a year and still no progress - he actually seemed to get worse. Developed strong anxiety and began showing sings of aggression.

Our last hope now is medicating him to see if it will help facilitate the training. Our vet recommended Prozac which we reluctantly agreed to.

It has been only a couple of days and understandably he is going through some side effects but the side effects are very hard to watch and i'm questioning if we're doing the right thing. He's dopey and dizzy - earlier today he couldn't stand up and panicked, when he did get up he ran right into a wall.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't want to lose him but i don't want to be the cause of more suffering for him either. Please no harsh words for me about putting my dog on Prozac either...

Brittany

Hi Shel and welcome to the forum!

I don't have any experience with Prozac but there are some members here that do and I am sure they can would be glad to share their experience with you.

I did want to say that training one dog may not be the same as training another. Diesel may need something different than your other dog. What kind of issues is he having? What type of training were/are you doing?

ShelCras

Thanks for your reply - we have tried different types of training, the people we hired to work with us are great and train the people more so than the dogs but also do other things like clicker training to teach them tricks which Diesel had a lot of trouble with. We would teach him something easy like 'lie down' and practice it over and over again until he was doing it everytime perfectly then we'd try to teach him something new and he no longer knew how to lie down let alone the new thing were were trying to teach. There's a lot of abuse and neglect in his past so we expected hurdles but where he's showing aggression now, we're not sure if he'll ever be OK.

Mikey

Welcome!!

Crio has one of her dogs on prozac too I believe. She can tell you more but my understanding is it's been a miracle she would have liked to try earlier.

Perhaps the dose is too strong for your dog-I'd maybe call the vet and ask about reducing it

Definitely stick around-we'd love to hear as you make progress and be your shoulder to vent when things are rough

fawkese1

first...welcome to the forum
second...hugs...sounds like a lot to go thru...

prozac is a wonderful drug that has helped many people live relatively normal lives when otherwise they wouldn't have been able to. imo, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using it for veterinary medicine also... in fact, i think it's awesome that you are exploring your options.
have you talked to your vet about his reaction to the prozac? that reaction doesn't sound normal at all... i would definitely bring it to the vet's attention ASAP....
are you working with a trainer or a behaviorist? if a trainer, what kind of certification do they have?
can you give more details about the training process, your schedule with him, and the types of behavior that he has displayed? what kind of dog is diesel? how old is he?

i'm not sure if i'll have an answer for you, but that info would help us to help you

Ravenwoodranch

where in the USA are you located, i know alot of people in vegas and California who do this sort of thing for free, by the way do you have any pics of him

Criosphynx

HI and welcome to twenty questions


what do you think happend to him and why do you think that, do you know or is it speculation?


what were their names? Where they certified? What did they suggest and what were the explainations?
what specifically?

explain this in detail...what does he do? when does he do it? what do you do and how do you react when he does?

I have a dog on prozac, its great, as long as its appropriate for your dogs issues.

bet you money the dose is TOO HIGH. Talk to your vet about lowering the dose. We had to change dosing twice on my dog and Iam considering changing it again.

Nothing like that here, but seriously you need to tell us everything you can possibly tell us about this dog, what you have tried, his reactions, your reactions, etc etc etc

ShelCras

Wow, thanks everyone - mostly everyone I know just thinks i'm crazy for even considering Prozac for my dog. I live in New Brunswick, Canada where most people still think it's Ok to just leave your dog tied to a post in the back yard and they will be happy. Below are my responses to the 20 questions

Oh - Diesel is a 7 year old, 67lb Dalmatian. I do have lots of pictures, but i'm at work right now so i'll post some a little later.

We adopted him through a local rescue group who removed him from 3 different homes over the course of his life - can you imagine? Talk about bad luck...

2 families beat him, another locked him in a room for about a year and let their two other unneutered males attack him constantly. He surprisingly didn't show any dog aggression when we met him.


It's an organization called Bark Busters. They are specifically for behaviour problems and the people in our area are certified by the organization. They operate on a concept similar to Cesar Milan, where a dog who is comfortable with his place in the pack will accept his pawrents as leaders and then you can work on addressing specific behaviour problems.

Their method is totally hands off and they encourage you to also attend obedience classes (which we did - both clicker and regular positive reinforcement) He was always so overwhelmed by the envirnonment, panting, pacing, whining - so we tried private lessons, same deal.



It's very random, he'll be laying on his bed and all of a sudden he'll start growling. Another time my husband got up from his chair and walked down the hallway and Diesel sprung up and charged after him barking.

We mostly try not to react,, just stay calm and ask him to go in his crate until he calms down and then we let him out.




That's what i'm thinking too but it's only 15mg, we had him on 10mg for 7 days and were told to increase to 15mg on day 8 and that's where it went wrong. I've called my vet and am waiting to hear back from her now.

I'll answer any questions you might have, anything for my boy. He's breaking my heart a little right now.

Criosphynx

awesome....

I ran into the same thing when I was researching prozac...lots of forum posts of people being belittled for thinking about it. This forum has been very supportive of my decision to use it

bark busters is infamous in positive training circles. Basically one of those, run, don't walk away as fast as you can types. Their methods will definetly not work on a dog such as yours. as you have seen lol.

There is som'thing called a "certified behaviorist" and there is a sticky in the behavior section as to how to find one. These are people that have degrees in behavior. If you ever feel the need to hire som'one again, I would go there, and only there.

Critter was confused and lost, and kept laying down in wierd places until we got the dose right. Before we lowered the dosing size.. my vet actually suggested and every other day type dosing...so she would have one day coming "on" to the drug and another with the effects fading....that way you can gauge based on those two days if you like the "more drug" behavior better than the "less drug" behavior...I found to like a middle ground so we did a half dose daily.

another thing is you may want to get his thyroid checked...wierd seemingly random aggression can spring from it.


that said, I think you dog is just masssively insecure. Rightfully so, I might ad. The way I deal with dogs like this is i make a solid solid routine...that way the dog learns that there are no suprises...micromanage every moment if you have too.

then I work on building confidence. LOTS of it. I set up the dog to win...ALOT. There are great clicker games you can play where he can't loose.

also I would sit down and make a list of everything, everyone, and every situation hes afraid of and start counterconditioning him to those things. (we can tell you how)....

I also recomend you pick up these beauties.

Amazon.com: Click to Calm: Healing the Aggressive Dog (Karen Pryor Clicker Book) (9781890948207): Emma Parsons: Books

and
Amazon.com: Control Unleashed - Creating a Focused and Confident Dog: Leslie McDevitt: Books

my feeling is your dog is going to need ALOT of indoor life skills-like training before you can transfer these skills to the outside world


hope that helps.

ShelCras

I actually really liked our Bark Busters people and we did have a great deal of success with our other dog but she isn't really a difficult dog and I agree that their methods aren't right for Diesel.

I am still waiting for my vet to call me back but i'll mention thyroid when I talk to her, see what she thinks.

Do the certified behaviourists you mention work with people who are not in their immediate area? There are seriously 3 options where I live - a cranky old woman who teaches obedience clicker training and doesn't address behaviour issues, Bark Busters and an obedience club who does obedience classes and agility classes not using clickers. Basically if you're dog develops any real problems, you are on your own.

You should have seen the pharmacist when I brought the prescription from the vet for Diesel. As far as I can tell, i'm breaking fairly new ground here so it's nice to know that there are other people who have been through this and understand what i'm going through.