Lucy is doing great with her anxiety. She is a normal dog again! I will scale back the Xanax dosage soon, as her other anxiety medication, Clomicalm, starts to take full effect. The bad new is that the eye pressure is still a problem. She will have a laser treatment next Monday to reduce the pressure. Both eyes will receive a procedure that should help the fluid drain from her eyes more successfully. We were suppose to check her thyroid today, but I gave the thyroid meds too early for an accurate reading today. I told her regular vet that I need a break and we will do her blood test in a few weeks. Both dogs have enjoyed the new pig ear that I brought home. It came from Barkworthies, a local dog treat company that makes good stuff. This picture shows how wagg-ity her tail has been recently. Yeaaa!
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There is a little bench by the window in the laundry room. As we leave, the pups look out and watch our departure. From the dog bed in the laundry room, Lucy can still see out the window to monitor for movement, indicating our return. When we return, sometimes Lucy is sitting quietly in her bed, watching the window carefully. Other times she has fallen asleep. The ritual of watching us leave seems to help with day time separation anxiety. Lucy's anxiety has decreased a little more. Last night, Lucy just bark a few times when we tucked her in. She was still panting, as we fell off to sleep. But didn't dig at her bed. Unfortunately, the pressure has gone up quite a bit in her right eye. We have tripled the eye pressure medication and will recheck the pressure on Monday. We are also getting her thyroid checked again on Monday, too. Molly is doing great. She often sleeps in a pool of sunshine on the laundry room bench, regardless of us being home or not. Disclaimer: I photoshopped in the daisy blooms. My daisies are pretty spent, and the dead heads just looked too depressing. See picture below:
So we got some sleep last night. When we went to bed, Lucy's initial objections were worse than normal. But after that, she did not pant as loudly or bark. On prior nights, she panted so hard, we could hear her through closed doors on the opposite side of the house. But last night, she dug at her bed and panted until midnight, without any barking. Since she would frantically protest until 4 am previously, this is a great improvement.
I was curious to see how people would react when I told them we needed to put our dog on anti-anxiety medication. Mostly, they laughed. It is a reminder to me of why people don't want to seek treatment when they have a panic disorder or mental heath issue. It wasn't hilarious when the dogs went on thyroid medication. We like to laugh at all of our problems, but we know that needing to even out the brain's chemicals is no different than diabetes or hypothyroidism. We are not ashamed. We tried behavioral modification training and it did not work. I'll spare you the details regarding all of that. So our wish for our selves and all of you: Try other stuff first, but everyone - if you need medication, go take it. It's not a big deal. The vet gave Lucy Clomicalm, which takes a few weeks to properly work. To bridge the gap until then, she is also taking Alprazolam (Xanax) as a secondary anti-anxiety medication. Here is a picture from the vet, and some pictures of our CVS trip for her medication. Hit the play button, in the corner of the picture to start the slideshow. Polly, the CVS lady was very nice. She gave us a dog biscuit, in addition to her pills. Everyone at the Vet's office said that Molly was Lucy's therapy dog. She definitely is that! We are taking Lucy back to the vet next week for blood work. We are going to double check that her thyroid medication is properly prescribed. If she is suffering from hyperthyroidism, that could cause her recent onset high anxiety. We are back at the vet to investigate Lucy's anxiety issues. They continue with such gusto, I'm afraid she will actually hurt herself. We have also been to the eye specialist to monitor her eye pressure, which is not improving. Ray is on the mend from his kidney stone. I start work tomorrow. I will be working 5 hour shifts, three days a week. The time apart will actually be helpful with Lucy's issues, I think. Hopefully the vet today can help!
After telling Lucy that she didn't need to worry at night; nothing was going to happen; we broke our promise. Ray went to the emergency room at 12:30 am with a bad pain. I stayed at home, feeling guilty for not going, too, but I had a job interview the next day. At 2:00 am, he texted me and said he was worse. I left with a frantic Lucy Puppy wondering why we both had left, like bad in-laws, in the middle of the night. Ray had a bad kidney stone. As we tried to leave the hospital, the Physician saw that Ray was in so much pain, they revoked Ray's discharge and readmitted him. I went home, caught some zzzzzzs. Ray rested at the hospital for surgery with IV pain meds. A few hours later, I went to my interview, while Ray simultaneously had surgery. It was a long, long day. At the end of it, Lucy settled down after an hour of whimpering. Molly was cool headed throughout the shuffle. Some weeks just have bad nights. Maybe next week will be better! I got the job, so that is a good start.
I've noticed that Lucy has been acting differently. She seems like she has not been feeling well. I took her back to the eye doctor, and she has elevated pressure in one eye. She's back on meds for eyeball pressure. The red haze in her eyes is just a normal reaction to the incisions, which was good news. But she is back to weekly visits to the eye doctor to monitor her pressure. Also, she has developed a bad case of night separation anxiety. She has always resisted going to bed, as she does not sleep in our room with us. But her fear of going to bed seems to grow with time, instead of diminishing. Research on this issue has proven unhelpful. We may need to add some anxiety meds, but I'd like to finish some of her eye related prescriptions, first. We try not to react to her crying and digging at night, but we need to get some sleep. To keep dust down, I don't want to have my pets sleep in my bedroom. I've tried letting her go free range for a few nights. I thought that if she saw that we were fine, and her bed was in the laundry room, along with Molly, eventually she would settle down on her bed. But she wandered all night. And being up all night resulted in accidents in the house. Except for our free range experiment, we stick to a predictable routine in the evenings; we try to not coddle her when she is upset, we are good pack leaders, but she is really anxious and is disrupting everyone's sleep. I hate seeing her like this. I wish she could speak, so we could talk out what is upsetting her.
...Following the sunshine, half under the guest room bed. Don't forget to check Tails of the Cheap. There is a new post.
We love to party in the parking lot. For real. We haven't even put in a patio at home. We just drag lawn chairs and a grill into our driveway. The neighbors don't care for it, either. So we had a great time at Richmond Animal League's Picnic in the Parking Lot. We were having so much fun, we forgot to get any pictures. We lifted this picture from RAL's Facebook feed. The picnic was the grand finale for RAL's calendar contest. We sold biscuits and mini muffins for last minute donations. We gave out ham tidbits to dogs. In total, online and in the parking lot, we collected donations from 12 different donors. We even won the raffle! A high point for sure, as we took home some RAL sweatpants. But the best part was saying hello to new pets and people. It keeps the pups well balanced. Us, too. At home, when it is time for a house guest or the UPS man to swing by, it is no biggie. Cause we have partied down with hounds, kids, pitbullies, and strangers in the parking lot with a sack of ham.
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