# Kodi now on Clomicalm



## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

Took Kodi to the vet behaviorist Friday and he is now on Clomicalm. I hope it works. The only place the poor puppy feels safe is inside the house. He has become very aggressive at the front door because he doesn't want anyone else in his safe place. I have a stack of papers with instructions on training and handling him. If this puppy were adopted, the adoptive parents would tell everyone he had been abused - but no, he has not been. We have worked hard and he has improved his reactivity outdoors to the point he no longer barks and does not lunge, but he's very nervous and skittish. Now nearly 10 months old and he is showing no further improvement during his walks and is worse at the front door.

The behaviorist instructed us to let him interact with no strangers at all for the time being, so if someone comes to the door he has to be taken to a room and the door closed before we can let anyone in. 

He is a sweet, funny dog with us. He's a bit of a roughneck, but that sort of reminds me of my grandsons when they were little. He plays like a boy.

I have worked very hard with him but for the last month I have seen no improvement and decided it was time for the vet behaviorist. She actually gave him a "fair to good" prognosis because he is so will trained and I have done a good job with him so far and have done almost everything right, she said. That gave me some hope and made me feel a little better. 

I feel so sorry for the little guy. He can't ever relax when he is away from home or on his walks. Sometimes, you just can't tell, every dog is an individual and you can never know for certain how they'll mature. When we first met him, he seemed normal. Not much different from our first American Eskimo when we brought her home. When he came home as a little 8-week old he seemed a shy, but had been through a traumatic experience, being taken away from his life, taken on an airplane ride, and coming to his new home. All I can say is we love him and he loves us and he is worth the trouble.

Thanks for allowing me to get it off my chest.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

Poor puppy

We have used clomicalm for two of our cats, it's a miracle drug as far as we are concerned. One cat got really drowsy on it though, and it didn't pass after two weeks like we were told it probably would. But it worked really well other than that.

Hope he gets better


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

Thank you. I sure hope it works for him. It's nice to hear from others that it does work. He just had his 4th dose and so far no side effects that I can tell.


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

After 3-1/2 days on Clomicalm Kodi is acting very restless, pacing, and showing even more fear. He has become suddenly afraid of my husband's van after seeing it parked in the same place every day for nearly 8 months. I have e-mailed the behaviorist and will receive an answer today, but in the meantime, has anyone else had this experience with the drug? I thought I was making progress with his fear, but his fear issues have been escalating for the past 2-3 weeks and just yesterday got even worse with pacing and restlessness and he is being hyperalert to sights and sounds. Might this be a fear phase that some puppies go through (on top of his general fearfulness)? How long might it last?


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## Labmom4 (Feb 1, 2011)

Oh boy. I dont have any experience with it, but Gracie and Rocky take the occasional xanax. I sure hope the vet gets back to you soon and you can get a handle on this. Poor guy.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

JuneBud said:


> After 3-1/2 days on Clomicalm Kodi is acting very restless, pacing, and showing even more fear. He has become suddenly afraid of my husband's van after seeing it parked in the same place every day for nearly 8 months. I have e-mailed the behaviorist and will receive an answer today, but in the meantime, has anyone else had this experience with the drug? I thought I was making progress with his fear, but his fear issues have been escalating for the past 2-3 weeks and just yesterday got even worse with pacing and restlessness and he is being hyperalert to sights and sounds. Might this be a fear phase that some puppies go through (on top of his general fearfulness)? How long might it last?


Some individual dogs do react to individual behavior drugs with an increase in anxiety or irritability. Sometimes they acclimate with time, sometimes they do better on a lower dose, and sometimes they do better on a different drug altogether. Definitely talk to your behaviorist about it.


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

Update - the behaviorist had me stop the Clomicalm and not give him anything else for now and I'm to call her today. He had been on Anxitane and I thought it wasn't doing much for him, but now I and the behaviorist are wondering if stopping the Anxitane brought on a relapse and maybe the Anxitane really was helping him. Now, interestingly, after being off Anxitane and Clomicalm, he seems to be back to baseline.

The fear of the van was weird. At first he would circle the van cautiously, sniffing it and backing away, and acting generally fearful of it like it was something he had never seen before. Now, after 3 days or so, he is not really showing fear of it any more, but he continually sniffs two different spots on the van, but always the same spots. Now I'm wondering if there is a smell on the van that frightened him. I wonder if that's even a possibility. Maybe a dog or coyote or some other critter peed on it. We intermittently have foxes in the area. He became very restless at the start of all this and kept wanting to go outside and when he would get outside he would stand and look around and sniff the air acting nervous. All that has now settled down.

When the Clomical was started, it was prescribed at half dosage for 2 weeks, and after that it was supposed to be given at full dosage. He only had 7 dosages at the lower dosage.

We are working on calming exercises with having him lie down on a mat and treating him when he lies down, trying to increase the time, and treating him for every sign of relaxation. This worked wonders in the vet's office, but at home not so much. He hasn't relaxed one little bit, just totally interested in the treats. In other words, can't treat him for relaxing cause he's not relaxing. Keeps jumping up and trying to get more treats. I wait, he goes and lies on the mat again, gets a treat. Sometimes he'll stay there for 10-15 seconds, gets another treat, but never twice in a row. With time, maybe we can accomplish this.


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## LazyGRanch713 (Jul 22, 2009)

JuneBud said:


> Update - the behaviorist had me stop the Clomicalm and not give him anything else for now and I'm to call her today. He had been on Anxitane and I thought it wasn't doing much for him, but now I and the behaviorist are wondering if stopping the Anxitane brought on a relapse and maybe the Anxitane really was helping him. Now, interestingly, after being off Anxitane and Clomicalm, he seems to be back to baseline.
> 
> The fear of the van was weird. At first he would circle the van cautiously, sniffing it and backing away, and acting generally fearful of it like it was something he had never seen before. Now, after 3 days or so, he is not really showing fear of it any more, but he continually sniffs two different spots on the van, but always the same spots. Now I'm wondering if there is a smell on the van that frightened him. I wonder if that's even a possibility. Maybe a dog or coyote or some other critter peed on it. We intermittently have foxes in the area. He became very restless at the start of all this and kept wanting to go outside and when he would get outside he would stand and look around and sniff the air acting nervous. All that has now settled down.
> 
> ...


I hope things improve.
When he relaxes, do you relax "with him"? My newest thing with Tag is getting to agility class about 20 minutes early and doing some heavy-lidded blinking at him. I feel like a fool, but it works. And, I really doubt people are watching me blink, but that's another story xD. I don't want him ALL the way calm, but it would be nice if he wouldn't attempt to jump out of his skin. It's actually quite amazing how dogs naturally respond to this, even dogs that aren't yours. (I do this at work, especially with puppies who are scared of their first groom. If I stay relaxed, keep my motions fluid, and heavy-lid blink at them, 99% of them respond. Pretty cool!)


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

I'm going to try the blinking. I've always done that with cats but not so much with dogs. I'm also going to try the relaxation exercise without treats. Treats get him too charged up.


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## Allyfally (Mar 4, 2011)

Omg, he sounds so much like my Falcor. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a dog like this. I've had him since he was 3 months old, and up until he was about 1.5 years old, he was EXTREMELY social and greeted everyone like a long lost best friend. Then suddenly one day some friends (people he had met before) came over and he just stood there the entire time barking at them and refused to get any closer than 20 feet away from them. And he's been like this ever since. 

Even people he's known his entire life he will no longer approach. Pretty much me, my mom and my brother are the only people he is 100% comfortable with. Everytime someone comes over he will run upstairs and hide until he's sure they're gone. 

He also gets stressed about objects. Like if the trash can lid is off, or if we move a chair, ect, he will not rest until its back where its supposed to be.

He's slightly better in public though. If we take him to a store or something he just ignores people. He might back up a bit if they try to pet him, but he doesnt bark or growl at them, just tries to keep his distance and pretend they arent there.


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## CoverTune (Mar 11, 2007)

My vet told me that George would have to be on the Clomicalm for at least two months before we could decide if it was working or not, and we did not start out on a "half dose". How strange.


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## xxxxdogdragoness (Jul 22, 2010)

It begs the question as to why dogs suddenly become afraid of things they previously weren't. Jo has decided that she is afraid of our mule utility vehicle that she had been running with previously along with her sister Izze. Nothing happened to her in fact she has had nothing but good experiences around it (playing with Izze as they run, chasing squirrels now all of the sudden she doesn't want to run with it anymore & has lost all her confidence, why?


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## MissMutt (Aug 8, 2008)

Let me just say that you are doing a GREAT job. There are so many people who refuse to tackle this sort of thing as a serious problem, so kudos to you.

If the Anxitane was stopped suddenly, I would not rule out that his behavior was partially a product of that. My dog takes L-Theanine, the human version of Anxitane. Because it works similarly to the way Xanax does and because Xanax is addictive, I've been very careful in slowly lowering her dose when I feel it's time for a change.

In terms of relaxing using treats, try to use something lower-value, like kibble. I do think he should be getting food while you're doing the relaxation exercises, but totally understand what you mean about getting revved up for treats.

What has the breeder said about this (I am assuming he came from a breeder)?


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## JuneBud (Feb 17, 2010)

Yes, he came from a breeder. She really doesn't know much, has no experience with her other dogs or puppies having this problem. His sire loves everyone, and the dam is cautious at first but then friendly. I did a lot of research on Kodi's lines and they are all excellent back many generations, all from the oldest and most well known kennels in the country. The breeder did her research as well and chose excellent lines. I have been talking with her since before Kodi was born and regularly ever since. She's always trying to help but doesn't really know what went wrong. Kodi's littermate is fine and two previous litters of the same parents are doing well.

Kodi is off everything right now and will be until I speak again with the vet behaviorist on Monday. Not quite sure how we will be proceeding after that. He starts his second group class tomorrow and I've already spoken to the trainer. He's going to explain to the other owners that they should not look at or pay any attention to Kodi. He did very well in his puppy class after some shyness the first day. Hopefully he will do as well this time. I hope he gets along with the other puppies/dogs. I don't have much trouble with him when I take him out unless someone tries to reach for him or comes directly at him. I've learned to be quick about avoiding those situations.

I will try plain kibble next time, but he usually acts like kibble is a super treat during training. Might even try doing the exercise right after he's eaten. That might take the edge off.


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