April is a 7 lb. morkie and is a nervous little dog. A while back her issues started to compound
on each other. Initially, it was thunder
storms and riding in the motorhome which is common with dogs. Then it was the windshield wipers and in the motorhome,
those are very large. When we had to
turn them on Bailey would chase them up on the dash while driving down the
highway and April would cower and start panting, shivering and breathing
heavy. Then it was the fire in our
propane fire pit and then she was bombed by a June Bug and so it was bugs which
then turned into flies. She had gotten
to the point where she wouldn’t go out onto the patio in the evenings.
We tried a thunder shirt and pheromone collars but they didn’t work
very well. We did
After visiting with the vet, we put her on a course of Prozac for about
3 months as we thought she was going to lose her mind. The medication takes about a month to really
take effect and during this course we noticed that her appetite really
decreased which concerned us. We finally
weaned her off the medication and amazingly it seemed like she had a bit of a
brain reset. She was now cautiously
coming out on the patio in the evenings and able to look at the fire pit. Over the course of time she seemed to get
more confident. During June Bug season,
however, we don’t sit outside. Even I
hate them. The wipers don’t seem to
bother her much anymore and the valium alone works well for when we are
traveling.
All was good with April for some time and then suddenly she has
recently become terrified of the indoor flies.
This has progressed to the point that when there are no flies she’s
still terrified there might be some. She’s
anxious about being anxious. We are
full-timers in our motorhome and that is all she has known as her home and this
was her safe place. Now she doesn’t even
want to be in it. She retreats to the
bedroom or under the dashboard where it’s dark and she can’t see them. The worst area for her is the living room
area and this is where she loved to sit between John’s legs on the
recliner. She normally could spend hours
there and won’t have anything to do with this area. She mainly just wants to be outside. Here’s the kicker, outside she lays on the
ground and the flies land on her and it doesn’t faze her. Does any of this make sense?
There is very little information out there for dogs being terrified of
flies. How do you desensitize a dog to
them? They are everywhere. I started her back on the Prozac and
initially had to use some of the Valium to get the panting, shaking and
shivering under control. Now we are down
to just the Prozac and yes, her appetite has decreased. I’m boiling chicken breasts which she seems
to eat, thank goodness. My plan is to
run this course for a couple of months and see what happens. After nearly 1 ½ weeks she finally sat in
John’s lap two days in a row for about 30 minutes each time – baby steps. She gets a lot of breaks by going outside
when it’s cool enough to just relax or go for walks and we try to take her with
us on errands when possible.
It's great that we have a veterinarian clinic that works with us on
this. Schrag Animal Clinic in south Oklahoma
City is awesome. Of note, when a dog is
on these types of medications it’s important that they have some blood studies
every month to be sure the meds aren’t having a negative effect. I plan to report on her progress in a few
weeks and pray that it’s good news.
