Fluoxetine Dosage

[Lisadale]

Hello,

My year old Maisie has anxiety. I can't take her on walks because she leaps at cars going by. We've tried positive training and CBD supplements without a great deal of success. She rages at the poor mail lady and other delivery people despite our attempts at counter-conditioning. When family comes for visits, she herds them when they get up to move from room to room. Right now she is barking at a hummingbird at the feeder. She is hyper-aware of sounds, movement, and new things in her environment.

We've tried positive reinforcement, counter-conditioning, professional training, and CBD with small successes. Her vet would like to try Fluoxetine and gave us a prescription. I'm dragging my feet a bit about starting her. I know it's something that we will try eventually. After reading some old threads here about Fluoxetine, I'm concerned about the dosage. Maisie is 30 pounds. The vet prescribed 20mg once a day. That's almost double the dosage most owners say they give their Shelties.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Sharon7]

So sorry you are having such challenges with Maisie. I'm sure you are frustrated. I'm no help with the drug though, so hopefully others will reply.

I do have one suggestion though. And it may be a long shot. But we've done Nosework (I think it's called Scentwork if you go through AKC) classes for years now, and I've seen dogs with very low confidence just blossom because of it. It's a dog driven sport, by that I mean, as owners we are there merely to support and reward, not direct or command the dogs. It's a whole different way of relating, since their noses and brains do all the work. It also really tires them out. The organization is NACSW if you want to check for classes in your area.

Good luck with Maisie.

 

[Lisadale]

So sorry you are having such challenges with Maisie. I'm sure you are frustrated. I'm no help with the drug though, so hopefully others will reply.

I do have one suggestion though. And it may be a long shot. But we've done Nosework (I think it's called Scentwork if you go through AKC) classes for years now, and I've seen dogs with very low confidence just blossom because of it. It's a dog driven sport, by that I mean, as owners we are there merely to support and reward, not direct or command the dogs. It's a whole different way of relating, since their noses and brains do all the work. It also really tires them out. The organization is NACSW if you want to check for classes in your area.

Good luck with Maisie.

 

[Lisadale]

Thank you for your recommendation.

 

[Piper's mom]

I can certainly understand how frustrating this must be for you as my 5 year old boy has anxiety issues.
I’ve never had him on that drug but I did have him on Clomi Calm (another off label anti-depressant) and I did notice an improvement when he was on it. Unfortunately he was only on it for about 3 months and then Covid hit so I weaned him off of it. The improvements are not immediate with Clomi Calm and I’m assuming that’s probably the same with Fluoxetine. I didn’t notice any adverse effects with the Clomi Calm, it was my intent to get him over his issues while on it (Rally classes would cause excessive barking) but then everything shut down and I haven’t gotten him back to class.
There’s also a Facebook group called Sheltie Talk, perhaps post your question there and hopefully someone can give you more information.

 

[Caro]

There is a wide safety margin on fluoxetine. I have a 6kg Sheltie - I think that's about 13-15lb and she is on 10mg daily, so 20mg is not unreasonable for a dog her size. I have to use the soluble fluoxetine to be able to break the tablet. My girl also has Catapres do add in high stress situations, she used to get this daily as well (sometimes 2-3 times a day when she was really stressed out). We did try trazadone and a couple of others but there are countra-indicated in a dog with the MDR1 gene mutation - which she has. That is something worth checking, your dog's MDR1 status as many anxiety meds work differently in MDR1 dogs and Shelties are a high risk for this gene mutation.

I will say, since my anxious dog was diagnosed with IBD (inflammatory bowel disease/ enteropathy) and started on steroids her behaviour has improved a lot and we no longer need the catapres. Although she will always been an anxious dog, without a raging sore stomach she's so much less reactive. I never knew she had IBD, she showed no other signs - it was picked up by an internal medicine specialist when she went in for a routine gallbladder scan (something I get done on all my Shelties).

PS - did you say she is only a year old? If she so is in adolescence which is a difficult time for many dogs and it may just be that she's going through that, or she had a fright during one of the fear periods. At that age she needs ongoing training and I would be hesitant to medicate at a high dosage.