Would not have been surprised to find out after I left that said co-workers shot up the place.

She developed noise phobias at a young age to the sound of high-pitched beeping noises (she woke me up terrified in the middle of the night, covered in pine needles that indicated she’d been trying to hide in the furthest corner of the yard — it took me an hour to realize that she was reacting to a tiny beeping sound that occurred once every two minutes, and another two hours to track it to a smoke detector’s low battery alarm). At age 10, she was frightened by the sound of a stump-digger backfiring right next to us as we passed, and her noise phobias gradually extended to every loud noise she heard while on a walk (prior to that, loud noises had never bothered her). Eventually this progressed to generalized anxiety disorder, where she was anxious around the clock, pacing, panting, digging, trying to hide, unable to sleep and making sure I did not either.

Over the years, I tried every natural treatment I could find, including desensitization, counter-conditioning, anxiety wrap, DAP adapter, Bach flower remedies, t-touch, herbal calming tinctures, and more. None did any good. Once she was sensitized to a sound, nothing except avoidance kept her from reacting to it.

It took a lot of research and the help of a veterinary behaviorist to find a combination of drugs that would allow her to lead a normal life. She is now on sertraline (Zoloft) and clonazepan (Klonopin) daily, with alprazolam (Xanax) and melatonin on an as needed basis. These drugs do not sedate her and she seems unaffected by them other than allowing her to resume normal behavior.

Had I been less resistant to the use of behavior-modifying drugs, I believe that her anxiety would never have escalated to the point that it was life-threatening. I encourage people to consider anti-anxiety drugs for dogs who are very fearful, or have noise phobias, such as to the sound of fireworks and thunder. I believe these drugs can improve quality of life and in some cases even save lives.

Dr. Karen Overall wrote an article about her mom’s dog who died due to untreated noise phobias (http://veterinarynews.dvm360.c.....id=136493). She recommends treatment with alprazolam (Xanax) as needed for dogs with noise phobias.

I’ve written an article describing my experience with behavior-modifying drugs, and passing along the information that I had so much trouble finding, about how different drugs work, and which drugs can be safely combined (http://www.dogaware.com/anxiety.html).

I also mention there that these drugs must be used very cautiously for dogs with aggression problems, as many will lower the bite threshold.

However … your point is backed up in the scenes from UC Davis: Many people don’t want to do the exercise and training. They want to give the dog a pill.

That said, I really do see a place for meds in working with dogs, for consideration as part of an overall program and with a recognition that the needs of a dog to be a dog must be met.

Not gonna happen.

The NYT article makes a major conceptual error in characterizing psych meds for pets as “anthropomorphism.” The base issue is not equating organically based animal and human mental illnesses. It’s in applying the model of organic pathology to every unhappiness, every inconvenient need that a being (of any species) has, in reducing all of us and our place on the planet to our individual chemicals, and then presuming that Pfizer knows best how to adjust those chemicals.

FWIW, I will no longer take aggression cases if the dog is being medicated. Why? Because every single time I did so before, I found that the drugs had *lowered the dog’s bite threshold* from whatever it had been before to “any annoyance or disturbance.” And I’ve also seen shy/reactive nonbiters become biters when given anti-anxiety drugs.

I thought it was generally understood that this is NOT the case. Almost all the behaviors that we think of as problems are caused/allowed by humans and can be trained away.

Of course breed-based behavior probably is genetic, though we don’t have the science to figure it out. But the inability to understand the difference between “genetic” breed-based behavior (which may or may not be a “problem” ) and “dogs do what works for them” so-called problems is pretty central to almost all the complications we have with dogs now.

Not saying that drugs are the answer in every case, but I’m still thankful that they helped me bring my girl back.