OT: Valium for dogs?

[ceecee]

This is OT, but reading the other thread on pets/drugs I'm concerned. My vet gave our lab valium for fear of storms. She is 6 and has never been afraid before, but we boarded them while we were at WDW this year and I think she may have been out in the storm while we were gone for their playtime. My older lab has always had a fear, but she hides in the closet and is okay. We give her Bachman's Remedy and use a Thundershirt, none of which helps the younger lab. She pants, paces and shakes. I've tried music, crates (she digs to get out) everything! I took her to the Vet and she gave her an Rx for Valium.

 

[clh2]

Our previous dog had a storm anxiety. We occasionally medicated him, I'm sorry - I don't recall exactly what we gave him. We referred to them as "happy pills". We would only medicate if we were expecting bad storms, and we weren't going to be home. If I recall - this was the one Rx that we actually got from a "people pharmacy".

Now - oddly enough, the dog we have now - will get a little spooked by the littlest of noises...and doesn't even blink if the thunder is shaking the house. GO FIGURE.

Good luck with this - to me it was always tough being at work when a hard storm was rolling thorugh.

 

[Dismom55]

I am not much help because I can not remember who makes this, but my brother has a Boston Terrier who is terrified of storms, firecrackers any loud noise and he gets him these little bone shaped treats at one of the pet stores near here. They do not need a prescription, they are really low in cost and simply calm him, not put him to sleep. They are weight based so they give him just the right amount based on his weight. I will have to get back to you for the name of the product so you will know what you are looking for and I will find out the name of the pet store that he goes to.

Just as an aside, his BT's name is MICKEY, gotta love it.

 

[CatNipRules]

We have to give my dog, for lack of a better word, downers, when we take him to the vet. Something I didn't know is that they can cause liver counts to be off in dogs. However, as long as they are only used on occasion it shouldn't be a problem.

My dog is unlike, 99.9999% of the dogs I've ever had. He hates riding in the car. He gets totally stressed out by it and literally freaks out every time we take him near the car. LOL!! So, when we take him to the vet we give him half of one of the pills. It usually has no effect on him though. So, we just go without most of the time. LOL!

Love the name. I wanted to name our dog that, but got outvoted.

 

[Dismom55]

We named our Boston Lili, short for Lilian, my baby will be turning one year later this month, she does not seem to be bothered by noises as long as I let her see what is causing it or at least look outside, it is when she is upstairs and can not see out the window she get bothered, so we go down to the sliding door and she looks out and seems to be just find. Odd. My brothers BT on the other hand is about 7 yrs old and did not get scared of the noises until my mothers BT passed several years ago, then the panic started.

We are a family of Boston lovers, I personally am on my 4th since being married with 2 while growing up, with numerous other in the rest of the family.

 

[Candace]

This is OT, but reading the other thread on pets/drugs I'm concerned. My vet gave our lab valium for fear of storms. She is 6 and has never been afraid before, but we boarded them while we were at WDW this year and I think she may have been out in the storm while we were gone for their playtime. My older lab has always had a fear, but she hides in the closet and is okay. We give her Bachman's Remedy and use a Thundershirt, none of which helps the younger lab. She pants, paces and shakes. I've tried music, crates (she digs to get out) everything! I took her to the Vet and she gave her an Rx for Valium.

Our golden mix was never afraid of storms until our house flooded in 2010. Now he trembles and shakes whenever thunder or lightning come, even a little bit. He wakes me up pacing - even wanting to get BETWEEN the nightstand and wall. He also hates long car trips, trembling the whole time. The vet said to try Benadryl, or Melatonin. Neither helped, so he gave me Acepromazine, which is a mild tranquilizer. It can be broken into half or fourths. I usually start out with 1/4 and see how he does. Sometimes it is enough and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes an extra 1/4 is required. For car trips, I give half around 1 1/2 hours before we leave. It has not affected him in a bad way, probably because we don't have to do it that often. I'm glad I have it! Poor fellow shouldn't have to be so scared!!

 

[horseshowmom]

Our golden mix was never afraid of storms until our house flooded in 2010. Now he trembles and shakes whenever thunder or lightning come, even a little bit. He wakes me up pacing - even wanting to get BETWEEN the nightstand and wall. He also hates long car trips, trembling the whole time. The vet said to try Benadryl, or Melatonin. Neither helped, so he gave me Acepromazine, which is a mild tranquilizer. It can be broken into half or fourths. I usually start out with 1/4 and see how he does. Sometimes it is enough and he goes back to sleep. Sometimes an extra 1/4 is required. For car trips, I give half around 1 1/2 hours before we leave. It has not affected him in a bad way, probably because we don't have to do it that often. I'm glad I have it! Poor fellow shouldn't have to be so scared!!

Ace is also great for dogs that get very carsick (30 minutes before we left). The litter I fostered prior to the two I have now had major issues. All 5 of those babies had severe carsickness. I won't go into details. I told my vet about it, and he gave me those (we'd used it with one of our horses before but never a dog). Solved the situation 100%.