Fluoxetine Expectations

[rengb121]

We adopted a dog about four months ago from a hoard situation. He’s four years old, but clearly fearful of everything including us. We potty trained him but cannot pick him up, get a collar on him etc. Trainers had highly recommended we try Fluoxetine. He’s been on it now for almost 4 weeks. I know it can take 6-8 weeks. There hasn’t been anything obvious. He still jumps out of his bed when I walk near it, he still backs wayyy up if he sees my hands except if I have treats. He always thinks we are up to tricking him or something. My question is how do you know that it kicked in or making a difference? I’d love to think rainbows, sunshine and money will start falling from the sky but what should I realistically expect?

 

[briantheguydude]

@rengb121 My dog has been on fluoxetine for 6 months or so now. My experience has been that there wasn't a really drastic shift in her behavior, but it has helped her be able to stay below her threshold more often and listen to me better. So we've been doing a lot more training both on our own and with a trainer to help her learn new behaviors and ways to cope. I think of it as a tool that is calming/quieting her mind so she can be more present which let's us work on things easier.

 

[rengb121]

@briantheguydude Thank you! Was she of you anxious before or more so not listening?

 

[briantheguydude]

@rengb121 She has pretty bad anxiety to where she would just shut down and shake whenever she was over her threshold which was a lot of the time. And she was starting to exhibit some OCD like behaviors. After a lot of training and working on redirection behaviors, she's now to the point where the only thing that really bothers her is the garbage truck. She's not 100% and there are still tons of things that she doesn't like, but she's able to manage them way easier and doesn't shut down like she used to.

 

[joshcorn]

@briantheguydude To be fair, the garbage truck bothers me too!

 

[zakknight]

@rengb121 That can be frustrating, but don’t expect sunshine and money falling from the sky. I noticed a much slower, much subtler change in my dog, but it’s still been a huge improvement!

It improves his behavior directly to some degree, but I’ve noticed that for my dog, the far bigger effect is that his threshold is higher. He still has the same triggers for the most part, but he can be a lot closer to them for a lot longer than before, so training can be way more effective!

Strangers for example are a big trigger for him. He used to bark aggressively toward strangers from 20 yards away. Now with treats and support, he can comfortably pass strangers on the sidewalk without an issue.

If after a couple more weeks you’re not seeing any changes I’d talk to your vet. My guy was on too low of a dose originally, so increasing it helped.

 

[rengb121]

@zakknight Thank you! How many weeks in until they changed the dose?

 

[zakknight]

@rengb121 I think I brought it up to my vet after 4-6 weeks, but my vet wanted to wait until he’d been on fluoxetine for 2 months before adjusting dosage. My dog was also on a very low dose.

The suggest range is 0.5-0.9 mg per pound of body weight. My dog is ~50 pounds and they started him on 20, which just wasn’t enough. They bumped him up to 30 and he’s been great with that.

 

[vikimahauty]

@rengb121 Prozac by itself makes little difference in fear behaviors, but it does help anxiety and allow the dog to respond quicker to behavior modification. There is generally no quick fixes for a severely under socialized dog. Try your best to allow the dog his safe space without you, and that will help build trust. I have a semi feral dog and it took about a year for her to feel comfortable around the house and with me. Treat/retreat is very helpful to teach him that it is ok to back away and take space. Set small goals and try to remember that the more you allow the dog to say “no thanks”, the quicker he will say “yes”.

 

[michael_natale]

@vikimahauty Absolutely this!

 

[likenizzy0211]

@rengb121 Fluoxetine didn’t work for my dog but Zoloft did. It’s not a miracle cure. The idea is to help bring the anxiety level down and stabilized. You still have to do consistent behavior modification to see improvement. It takes a minimum of 6 months for a dog to truly be home and that’s if there are no quirks.

 

[christianityfacts]

@likenizzy0211 I personally have taken Zoloft and for me, I saw effects almost immediately because I'm a lightweight and was at 2½-3 years of sleep deprivation. The only effect anyone outside of me that would have seen right away if I couldn't vocalize was the fact that I slept my first 36 hours on it almost straight through where I only woke up to go to the bathroom, eat if my fiance woke me up with food, and take my meds. It did take about a month for my response to Zoloft to settle and have stable noticable improvements in my PTSD symptoms despite my PTSD symptoms being not very noticable thanks to my C-PTSD/did effecting the way my PTSD from an exroommate presents. I'd imagine it's possible dogs can have something similar happen where they can feel it helping a lot sooner than we can sometimes be able to notice but can't tell us because of the language barrier

 

[hoasenphat]

@rengb121 We did Fluox for almost 2 years and recently switched to Sertaline. Fluox didn’t work for us, it really made our dog a zombie, and we just thought he was “under threshold”.

Him on Sertraline has been so wonderful. He plays with toys again, interacts with us, and even asks for pets.

Give it time for fluoxetine to work but if you don’t see a huge difference after several months or if you’re constantly questioning if it’s actually working consider switching to another medication.

 

[rgw00]

@rengb121 Fluoxetine builds over time. It can take longer than 6-8 weeks for some pups. Most vet behaviour specialists will prescribe a secondary medication to accompany fluoxetine (like gabapentin or clonidine). These "secondary meds" are usually shorter lasting with more immediate effects. Maybe reach out to your vet and ask?

 

[patrickcen]

@rengb121 It’s subtle and relies on time and training too, but over time you’ll see a gradual change in the “length of their fuse” (how much they can take before they react), how big the reaction is, and how fast they recover and calm back down. My dog still reacts but meds have made it much more manageable!

 

[michael_natale]

@rengb121 Fluoxetine helped us a lot but it took months to get the dosage dialed in

Congrats on your new pup. They’re still settling in, decompressing from the stress of rehoming. Give them time and space, their personality will bloom and then you’ll be able to dial in the training.

 

[surendered12345678]

@rengb121 What dosage is he on?
With my dog (standard poodle, 40lbs) he took 20mg for years and when he started it wasn't a specific "hey this is definitely working" but a gradual or subtle way of recovering from a stressful event (for example when it used to take 2 minutes to calm down and stop barking when he saw or heard another dog, it would take 30 seconds to a minute) and he was able to shake it off and enjoy the rest of the walk.

Best of luck- we just want our pups to be happy in their own skin!