After being sad about Lucy's state yesterday, I decided to start making it better. What were things to cease the "shut down"?, I wondered. We went through the Chic-Fil-A drive thru. Lucy picked her head up and ate some chicken nuggets. We rode around in a shopping cart, just like "old times". I bought her a new harness and a little coat at Petco. When we got back home, I put the harness on her, and made her go for a walk. She was terrified and hated it. I pulled her along, one teeny step at a time. We made it to the stop sign near our house and then returned home. What was once was a five minute walk, took over twenty. But we did it. We have practiced walking about inside, from the front door to her dog bed. We keep practicing walking. She is made to walk herself to the food bowl, where she will now eat. She can't remember any of the routes that we have practiced. But the good new is that she has ceased the shut down.
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!
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. |
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