Napoleon Updates: Class and Meds

Napi and I have now gone to three sessions of our "class" (actually just a couple friends and I renting a training space and each doing our own thing). Napi and my thing is to sit and eat treats while other people and dogs are in the same building. I'm really pleased with how he's doing, actually. The first time we did something like this, he wouldn't eat at all.

Here's a 3 minute video showing how Napi is doing. We are sitting right next to a half-height door, so he cannot see - but can hear - what's happening in the next room (my friend and her boxer working on personal play). About ten feet away to the left, there's a closed door to another room, where another friend and her two dogs were.


 Overall, I'm quite please with Napi so far. Obviously, we have tons of work left to do, but he's making nice progress.

On the medication front, since I cannot afford to take Napi to see Maisy's old veterinary behaviorist, I had our primary vet, Dr. Jessy, consult with Dr. Duxbury on the phone. This is an awesome (free) service. The result was a nice discussion of our options. The first thing we are going to do is increase Napi's Prozac dose. If that does not work, we are going to switch to either Paxil (Maisy's drug of choice) or possibly amitryptiline (which I know basically nothing about and am possibly spelling wrong; I think it's a tricyclic?). And depending on how that goes, we will experiment some more with trazodone, clonidine, and/or Xanax.

I really just want my poor boy to be more comfortable around the house. As it is, the noises that my other three dogs ignore (even Maisy, who used to bark at basically nothing) set him off in spasms of barking. It's annoying to listen to and undoubtedly painful for him to live like that.

I must have a thing for reactive dogs, because I'm just in love with this dog. He's so sweet, affectionate, and funny. If we can just get his anxiety under control, he'll be perfect.