I had plans for more shots/poses, but the neighbor started his tractor and Dazzle was thinking seriously about getting that tractor, so I decided it was best to take him in. Thankfully our practice in the sun made it easy to get the shots I wanted in short order once we were in the shade so I like the way these came out.
I know I have talked about Dazzle's thunder phobia on the blog before, but I think we have found the solution! I have tried SO many things, but nothing I tried was working to relieve his stress during thunder. So I bit the bullet and got some drugs from the vet. During a storm early last week, I tried one of the pills (1mg alprazolam), but it didn't seem to have much effect. The dosage range for the "doggie Xanax" is rather large, so we started with a low dose in case that worked.
On Friday, I had to be at the training club since I'm running the Agility practice runs (and didn't want to leave it to Sarah again). But I knew a big storm was predicted. I went to the club early to practice Dazzle's agility and he got in one official practice run on the full course before I needed to give him the meds. He has to get them about an hour before the thunder so they have time to work. Since I knew we were going to be in a metal building, I brought along benedryl as well. I gave him 1 benedryl and 2mg of the Alprazolam. I also put his thundershirt on him. Given how loud the thunder was, he was still reacting a bit and climbed in my lap and shook a bit, but nothing like the basket case he would have been without the meds! And as soon as the thunder was over, so was his reaction (instead of being stressed for an hour+ after the last boom). So definite improvement!
Last night, more storms rolled through, but we were between two bad cells. So the thunder was more distant, but definitely still audible at a level he would have reacted badly to. I gave him only 2 of the alprazolam and he slept through the storm!!
