Fireworks
I have a request for those of you who teach or have contact with pet owners in any professional way. Please remind them that July 4 is coming up fast. In Vancouver (WA), fireworks go on sale on June 28. They can legally be shot off from July 1 through July 4
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"I know that the common "treatment" for storm and noise phobias and veterinary office visits is acepromazine. In truth, I wish this medication would be placed at the far back of a top shelf and used only exceptionally. Acepromazine is a dissociative anesthetic meaning that it scrambles perceptions. Ask yourself if a scrambling of perceptions will make an anxious or uncertain dog worse or better. It's always worse, and we make many if not most dogs more sensitive to storms by using this drug. In part this is also because sensitivity to noise is heightened.
"This is a recipe for disaster for these dogs, and, in fact, they learn to be more fearful and more reactive because of these associations. If what you need is sedation - acepromazine can be an acceptable adjuvant, but it makes most of my really fearful and really reactive patients worse, so all sorts of other drug combos can work better and do less harm than is done by the routine use of acepromazine."
When I had to move up to prescription drugs for Lucy, Xanax seemed to be the most successful. It could stop, or at least reduce, anxiety that had already started so I wasn't toast if the fireworks started before I got a pill into her.
Dr. Overall also has a video on why not to use Ace at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-GsmrFYHKk
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