By Lissa Christopher
Georgie in a rare calm moment. Even having a phone camera pointed at her could set her off.Credit: Paul Hopkins
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So, during a COVID lockdown, like so many other Australians, we adopted a dog.
We met nine-month-old Georgie once, for about 10 minutes, before deciding to have her share our home and our lives for the next, ooh, let’s say 15 years. She seemed so cute and exuberant … maybe a touch frenetic? What a pair of naive idiots we were. But that’s another story.
It didn’t take long for a few … er … issues to reveal themselves.
Some dogs need medication, not just obedience training.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
Georgie turned out to have two key responses to anything in life with which she was unfamiliar (meaning almost everything): bark really loudly at it for aaaages while leaping around like a possessed Jack-in-the-box with fangs, or tuck tail and scuttle away. She also growled and snarled if startled or when touched anywhere other than on her head or chest, but she didn’t bite. Her bark had (still has) only one operational volume: skull-shaking.
The epic list of happenings, objects and creatures that could set her off on a wild barking jag or send her scuttling away included but was far from restricted to: cutlery sloshing gently in the sink, sneezing, dogs 100 metres away on the other side of the road, rain, the car indicator, anyone with an unusual walk, shopping trolleys, my husband and I having a normal conversation, magpies, hugging, sudden movements, scraping chairs and the arrival home of our lovely neighbours. She could sometimes respond to a simple request to sit or lie down for a few seconds before she was up and off again, barking. She seemed to know what we were asking of her, but she just could not do it.
At night, she would pace the perimeter of the lounge room, barking and whining and fretting about things outside we could neither see nor hear. Thunder brought on outright panic. She would rarely walk more than 50 metres from our front door and if she did, her on-leash modus operandi was diabolical. She often reminded me of a panicked rabbit – all propulsive back legs. The human on the other end of the leash was merely a ball and chain to her convict/rabbit on the run.
Georgie (not pictured) was afraid of a wide range of noises and almost anything or anyone new.Credit: iStock
Georgie also, however, proved herself whip-smart and mysteriously lovable. We were slightly frightened of her, besotted with her, exhausted by her. We could barely live with her. We couldn’t live with ourselves if we gave up on her.
After some months of bafflement and hair-tearing, we were lucky enough to be referred to a wonderful trainer who had seen this kind of thing before. No, Georgie was not trying to dominate us. No, she was not being stubborn or wildly disobedient. No, more obedience training would not sort her out. No, running her ragged and throwing balls for her to chase would not calm her down.
What we had was a very anxious dog who was so frazzled by the constant fear churning through her body that she could not think clearly or learn. The trainer showed us some of what I now understand to be good quality protocols based on positive reinforcement principles that can help calm dogs, but when those barely touched the sides, she suggested Georgie might benefit from medication as well.
Just as there is growing awareness of human mental health issues, so there is about animals and their mental health, particularly anxiety, says Dr Isabelle Resch, president of Australian Veterinary Behavioural Medicine, a group within the Australian Veterinary Association (AVA).
“It’s becoming far more acceptable to discuss [human] mental health and I think that’s actually carried over to the veterinary profession,” she says. Anxious dogs, however, are still often perceived as simply badly behaved or aggressive.
The AVA, Resch says, is “trying very very hard” to increase public awareness about anxiety in dogs. “We want to get the message through to people that hey, your dog’s not being naughty. He’s not getting back at you. He may be anxious, fearful, stressed, panicking.”
Frightened dogs can be mistaken for aggressive or wilfully disobedient dogs.Credit: iStock
Resch says the similarities between treating dogs with behaviour problems and human psychiatry are manifold. “Dogs have the same sorts of brains and neurotransmitters as people, and they have emotions and feelings. They’re not little people but we do need to realise that there’s a lot more going on with them than we perhaps give them credit for.”
And another similarity with psychiatry: just as medication and good quality talk therapy are typically the best way forward for people struggling with their mental health, so medication and good quality behaviour training are the best way forward for dogs, Resch says.
We didn’t hesitate to medicate Georgie and she was prescribed sertraline, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) also used to treat human mental health issues (and widely known by the brand name Zoloft), along with another, faster-acting medication that would help her relax.
Some people do hesitate to medicate their dogs, though, says Dr Joanna McLachlan, who owns a Sydney-based vet practice focused on the diagnosis and treatment of animal behavioural problems.
“I commonly hear that anti-anxiety medication only ‘masks’ the behaviour, when in fact it does the complete opposite – it treats the underlying driver for the behaviour by addressing the anxiety disorder that is causing it,” she says.
Dr Joanna McLachlan asks a canine friend to focus on her.Credit:
“People are often worried that medication is going to turn their dogs into ‘zombies’. I always warn my clients that if the medication I have prescribed is turning their dog into a zombie (or causing them to be sedated or causing any other concern) for more than a few days, then they need to let me know! It often means the dose needs adjusting, or that we need to switch to a different product. No behaviour vet wants an animal to live with side effects – there are so many treatment options available that we don’t need to settle for this any more.
“I am also saddened when I hear people say medication should be used as a ‘last resort’, when they would probably never say the same thing about any other medical treatment. This ultimately means that dogs who truly need to be medicated end up being deprived of proper medical treatment for many months or even years while their owners work their way through thousands of dollars worth of over-the-counter products, and training sessions that don’t work because the dog has a medical condition that is preventing it from being able to learn. This line of thinking also assumes that behaviour vets like me enjoy giving medication out to patients who don’t really need it.”
With Georgie, after a few weeks, several key things began to shift. First, she began to sleep more (deep restful sleep is as important for dogs as it is for humans), some of her noise phobias began to disappear and, slowly but surely, she started showing a willingness to venture further from the front door. She began to walk with us rather than trying to tow us into the next postcode.
Many of Georgie’s troubling behaviours have since simply melted away over time, but medication alone has not been a silver bullet. She still requires careful management and guidance to modify her behaviour. She is a marvellous work in progress.
We are works in progress, too. Having come to dog ownership knowing next to nothing, we have learnt so much about gentle, positive training methods, about how dogs learn and communicate, and what helps them to thrive. It has been both wearing and incredibly rewarding.
These days, Georgie can fall fast asleep in the middle of the kitchen floor (so annoying!) while I’m banging pans in the sink. She loves going for long walks around the neighbourhood that suck up hours of my day. She still barks a lot, she still struggles around other dogs and we barely dare to dream of the day she will allow us to trim her toenails. She is also increasingly affectionate, a master of the lightning-fast up-nostril tongue pash, and more willing to approach new people. She has even managed to befriend the postman but remains a staunch enemy of his bike. We are so glad we stuck it out and we love her to bits, perhaps never more so than when she’s fast asleep, anywhere but in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Signs your pet might benefit from medication
- When your pet’s behaviour impedes their ability to perform normal everyday activities, such as resting, playing, socialising, eating or toileting. For example, when a dog is struggling to get a good 16 hours of deep sleep per day or when a cat spends all day hiding
- When the behaviour of concern is out of context or exaggerated, and when it takes your pet a very long time to recover afterwards
- When the problem is worsening with time
- When your pet struggles to remain relaxed (under “threshold”) during a training session despite making standard allowances to help them learn
- When good quality training is just not working the way it should
- When there are multiple triggers to which your pet reacts
- Specific conditions such as panic disorders, generalised anxiety disorder, object-eating (pica) and obsessive-compulsive disorders almost always need medical intervention
Source: Dr Joanna McLachlan, Pet Behaviour Vet
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