How long to see results on fluoxetine/prozac

[jordi9999]

Hi everyone,

I have a 1.5 year old gsd/basset hound/who knows mix who has separation anxiety, is people reactive, dog reactive, leash reactive, everything reactive.

We have worked with a trainer for 8 months with no real traction on his reactivity because his baseline anxiety is too high. Our vet referred us to a veterinary behaviourist and he prescribed Teddy 20mg of prozac per day (he is 40 lbs). He also obviously put Teddy on a training program as well.

The veterinary behaviourist said it could take 4-6 weeks to see the full effects of the prozac, and to watch out for any side effects but said they should pass within a week or two. It's only been 1 week so I know its early, but we have seen 0 side effects with Teddy (yay) but also 0 improvement in his baseline anxiety and subsequent reactivity. My question is.. how long did it take for you to see a positive change in your dog's baseline anxiety after starting prozac?

TL;DR How long until you noticed the prozac kicking in and helping your dog?

 

[blushedtweety]

@jordi9999 My dog is not on Prozac, but with some of my clients that have opted that route with their dogs. It was around 3 to 6 weeks like your vet said, before any noticeable results. Definitely follow their training program!

 

[jordi9999]

@blushedtweety Did they all have positive results with prozac?

 

[blushedtweety]

@jordi9999 All of them no. Some needed different medications or combinations of medications. These are more of the severe cases. It’s crucial to combine it with behavior modification. In my experience the meds are sometimes necessary to take the edge off so the dog can respond to training, and ideally the medication being temporary. I have also had some of my clients try oral CBD with their dogs, and had great results with that.

 

[infinityminidbox]

@jordi9999 We saw a tiny improvement after week one, big improvements after 4 weeks, and here 5 months in she's like a whole new dog. Maybe 1 day during the first two weeks she was uninterested in food and seemed a little more grumpy, but damn if it hasn't been a miracle otherwise. We can have people over again, she isn't constantly growling/barking at neighbors, and I've been able to pet her and gave her sleep on the bed for the first time in about 2 years.

 

[luckyclaire]

@infinityminidbox How much are you giving your dog and how much does your dog weigh?

 

[infinityminidbox]

@luckyclaire She gets 20mg a day, and she weighs ~45lbs.

 

[milikova]

@jordi9999 Our dog was noticeably tired right away. Maybe a few days in. So that alone helped calm him down. After 3 weeks the tiredness went away but by then the effects of the med were already in effect. Ours needed it as well because his anxiety was too high. It’s made a world of difference for us. We still do lots of counter conditioning and desensitization but without the fluoxetine who knows if we would have ever gotten through to him. Good luck!

 

[neroway]

@jordi9999 My girl is taking 20mg for anxiety though we ramped up with 10 for the first 10 days before getting to the full dose. Looking at our log, I definitely noted a change in behavior after 9 days (so still in the 10mg period), but she continued improving for several weeks after that.

 

[luckyclaire]

@neroway How much does your dog weigh?

 

[marcojb]

@jordi9999 Just started my 10 month old cattle dog on them less than a week ago.

Same boat, my guy is far too anxious to train properly.

We got this. I'm staying positive and I believe in both of our dogs.

 

[pearlie1078]

@jordi9999 We’re doing 40 mg for my 95 lb GSD who is also everything reactive due to severe baseline anxiety. It took us about three days to start to see side-effects and positive, albeit short-term, behavioral changes. The good effects of prozac seemed to start to stabilize around week four, and then continued to ramp up from there (we just started week six). In between those two periods we had bouts of severe regression, total personality flip (super social), and no change at all. The drug’s effects did not built linearly.

Prozac is very variable in dogs for those first few weeks. Some dogs show no signs of the drug working until weeks 4-6, some can show changes in as little as 24 hours. Others can be like my dog, who have a positive change 3 days in, and then a HUGE regression in weeks 2-3. You’ll have a much better idea if you need to change the drug or the dose in a few more weeks. Good luck!

 

[scalkelly]

@jordi9999 It took about 5 weeks to start seeing results consistently. My GSD is on 40mg but he's also 90lbs hah.

What was crucial was continuing his training and building up his confidence.

I also kept a notebook with a breakdown of reactions before we started prozac and kept it going after so even when we have bad days, because you still do, I can look back to see progress we have made.

 

[jordi9999]

@scalkelly What kind of progress have you made?

 

[scalkelly]

@jordi9999 He used to be terrified of dogs, joggers, bike riders, and whenever he was in the car it all got magnified x100.

He's been on prozac for about 3 months now and we can get by joggers and bike riders without incident. Dogs are still a struggle but his threshold has noticeably improved. And now we can drive places in the car without him freaking out!

 

[alamin1]

@jordi9999 We're at 3 weeks with fluoxetine for our 3 y/o Australian Shepherd and no noticeable improvement for now. Appetite has lessen though, and he does not wake us up early in the morning (it's not something we were looking for, just a change we noticed). Also we tried mixing with trazodone once with fluoxetine as suggested by the vet for stressful events (trazodone has been tried a couple times before the fluoxetine) and he had what seemed to be a bad trip.. We will have a follow up this week with the vet.

Looking forward to see some change in his vigilance/stress baseline, but we know it can be a long process.

 

[allforhisglory]

@jordi9999 It's really hard for me to disentangle what changes are caused by fluoxetine and what are caused by the hard work with training but I would say that we saw our first improvements at around 4 weeks. Prior to 4 weeks the only change I noticed was suppressed appetite, that hasn't really gone away but is manageable and wasn't very surprising since my dog has always been a bit of a picky eater.

Around 4 weeks, my dog suddenly would walk into the shower and would approach the bath when I was in it. Previously he was terrified of water. I attribute this to the medication because counter conditioning to bath time was so low on our priorities, I hadn't even considered it yet. In general, he's showing a lot more curiosity towards things that previously scared the daylights out of him.

We've had major successes with counter conditioning to touch. He's actually become crazy cuddly. I don't think this could have happened without the combination with meds. And our biggest success to-date was that we were able to have houseguests. I thought this would take much longer but he's able to relax around houseguests! We still have a no touching without consent policy (i.e., Junebug has to come up to the person with a loose wiggly body without any luring and put his nose or paw on you) and he actually approached our houseguests and requested touching after they had been there for 4 days!!! Fluoxetine alone wouldn't have done this but it allowed him to relax enough to have some positive experiences.

 

[mistertumnus]

@jordi9999 My dog isn't reactive, he has a different set of anxiety behaviors, BUT he was on fluoxetine before switching to Clomicalm. Yes, it did take about a month before improvement could be seen, and those improvements got better and better thru the second month.

Mine is 45-50 lbs and had a 40 mg a day dose to start. Then 60 mg. Then we flipped to 20/20 mg Clomicalm (twice a day), and ended up 60/60 dose with the veterinary behaviorist. Plus every time we changed doses it was 2 weeks to start seeing effects. Main gist of all that is it may take multiple tries to find out what works for you and it will take time for each try's effects to be seen.

My best recommendation is to record your training sessions over the next few months. The little changes with the drugs and training build up over time and you may not notice. But having those videos help put how far you've come in perspective.