I’ve used fluoxetine with 2 different dogs for anxiety during our Oklahoma severe weather of intense lightning & thunderstorms. It seems to help them but their symptoms do not completely disappear under the medication. On the larger dog, an Australian cattle dog now gone for over 10 years, we also tried one of those compression snuggle wraps to some good effect. As to the dogs merely mirroring owner anxiety, that may apply in some cases but not this one. My wife & I are both well aware about storms & I even do some storm spotting for the local weather service office, reporting via amateur radio.
Prozac takes a while to build up in the system. It wouldn’t work at all if you just gave it during a storm. They (like humans) would need to be on it a long time for mood disorder and even then, id imagine, it wouldn’t blunt the shock of very loud sudden noises and rattling that come out of nowhere. A mild sedative would work much better for short term anxiety. And in addition to the medicine, knowing you’re there close with them and not afraid of the sounds is probably more comforting than anything. They are pack animals and feel safety in the pack and in the “den”. Which since they are domesticated, the pack is the surrogate human family and the den is the house or usually one room of the house that only has one way in and out. If possible stay close with them as the storm passes and pet them and verbally assure them when the loud sounds come. They’ll learn quickly the storm sounds are nothing to fear. They may duck and crouch when they hear it, but they’ll come back around quickly.
One of my dogs has been on Fluoxetine for about 6 years now. Why? Because she never slept. For the first 2 years of her life, she would “cat nap”....15-20 minutes and then be up. Pacing, walking around ALL NIGHT long, every single night.
Just when we thought she was finally going to sleep....boom...15 minutes later she was up and at it again! It wouldn’t be long before she would start barking. Waking up myself, my husband and her 3 siblings. It got to the point where I would take the “late shift”, meaning I stayed up better than half the night trying to keep her calm and quiet, my husband took the early morning shift doing the same, just so we could get some sleep. We had no clue why she would not sleep for any length of time.
Before I told my vet about it and said the humans in the house were getting very sleep deprived, we tried all the usual fixes for the problem [exercise, essential oils, crate, no crate, lights off, nightlight on, etc] . Nothing worked. Yes, she was checked by our vet and deemed to be very healthy. That is when our vet suggested putting her on Prozac [Fluoxetine]. It has been a God send! She now sleeps a solid 5 hours on it.
Izzy was the tiniest one in her litter. Perhaps she was oxygen deprived before or during birth? I’ve always said she is a little mentally challenged by some of the quirky things she does. Maybe her size, or birth had something to do with her not sleeping? Honestly we don’t know what caused her to not sleep for any length of time. Even our vet was puzzled since Izzy was the first she heard of who never slept. And trust me, she never slept except for those short little 15 minute cat naps. All I know is since she has been on this medication, the whole house can now sleep at night.
Having had dogs my whole life, Izzy is the only dog I have never been able to “train” as far as sleeping through the night. Fluoxetine/Prozac really is good for anxiety, IMO.
Sometimes it’s not a training issue, or an owner issue causing the problem, but a dog just needs a medication for a medical issue....much like humans do for certain ailments, for a better quality of life?