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There are numerous options available for relieving your dog’s fear if he is anxious, nervous or fearful. Most of them are quiet effective though what works for one dog may not work as well for another and you may need to experiment to find out what works best for your dog.
Using Drugs to Combat Fear
While natural remedies are popular and oftentimes effective, in some situations stronger solutions are needed and it is necessary to resort to medications such as diazepam (Valium®) or alprazolam (Xanax®) for short term solutions or drugs such as clomipramine (Clomicalm®) or fluoxetine (Prozac® or Reconcile®) for longer term solutions.
There is one medication, however, that should never be used to treat your dog for anxiety or calm your dog’s fear. That medication is acepromazine (PromAce®).
Why Acepromazine is Not Appropriate for Fearful or Anxious Dogs
To be perfectly honest, acepromazine does have a place in veterinary medicine and I do use it as a premedication prior to surgery and in certain other situations. However, acepromazine is not an anxiolytic medication.
What that means is that acepromazine does not relieve fear or anxiety. Essentially, what happens when your give a fearful or anxious dog acepromazine is that the dog will become “sedated” and it may even appear to you that it seems to be helping because your dog is unable to react to the things that scare him. However, that does not mean he does not continue to be scared.
Let’s think about that for a moment. What would that feel like? To be so scared of something that you want to run away from it but be unable to react or respond to the object because of medication given to you by someone you trust to care for you?
In many cases, medicating your dog with acepromazine may actually make his fear worse. That makes sense when you think about it. Imagine being frightened of something and then being immobilized and forced to endure the fright without being able to react to it? Of course, that’s going to intensify your fear.
A Real-Life Example of Acepromazine Being Used for a Fearful Dog
Unfortunately, even though we know that acepromazine should not be used to relieve anxiety for fearful dogs, it continues to dispensed by some veterinarians for this purpose.
My friend Edie over at Will My Dog Hate Me recently wrote about her experiences with traveling with her fearful dog, Frankie. Edie’s vet actually provided her with acepromazine to use for Frankie while traveling.
Fortunately, Edie discovered from Debbie Jacobs, an expert in dealing with fearful dogs and author of the book A Guide to Living With and Training a Fearful Dog, that using acepromazine was not in Frankie’s best interest and she discontinued using it.
It is unfortunate that acepromazine continues to be used and prescribed for fearful and anxious dogs. If your dog is being treated with this medication for his fears and phobias, please talk with your veterinarian about a more effective alternative. For more information, please see the position statement issued by the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) on the management and treatment of dogs with firework phobias or this YouTube video featuring Dr. Karen Overall (DACVB) talking about why acepromazine is not recommended for treating phobias.
Photo Courtesy of wolfsavard/Flickr.com
About Lorie Huston, DVM
Lorie Huston is a veterinarian, pet health and pet care expert, professional writer, blogger, social media and blogging consultant, and SEO strategist.
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I think so. It’s more of a sedative though. We use it for one of our dogs on long on cross country road trips.
Hi Gila.
That is exactly my point. Acepromazine is a sedative but not a medication that relieves anxiety well.
I’m sorry, but based on my experience I disagree with much of this article.
Hi Rita. I always encourage others to share their opinions here and I appreciate that you took the time to do so. Thank you very much for that.
I’m not sure what your experiences are but, on this subject, I think we may just have to agree to disagree. As a veterinarian, I can tell you that, though I prescribed this drug in the past for anxiety before any of us knew any better, I will never again use it, prescribe it or dispense it for that purpose. There are much more effective, not to mention safer, alternatives available now. That is, of course, only my personal opinion but it is backed up by many who are smarter than I about the subject. Please see the article for references.
I think this is a tough one. I had seen Dr. Overall’s vid before taking Luna in for surgery. The surgeons prescribed ACE for Luna’s recovery, even though she is a fearful and anxious dog. They claimed that she would need that drug to be more sedated for her healing, but sometimes she seemed frantic–but don’t know if it was the ACE or her reaction to discomfort. The vets said she was still to be on it, as she needed rest. She had been given Alprazolam prior to surgery, and was ok on that in small doses. Always good to be cautious, so thanks for this article.
Hi Hilary.
I think in Luna’s case, they probably were using the acepromazine more as a sedative than as an anxiolytic medication. They really weren’t trying to relieve fear for her but just to keep her quiet so that she could heal without causing further injury to herself. That’s a bit different than using it during a thunderstorm for a dog that’s scared of thunder or using it on the 4th of July for a dog that frightened of fireworks. In Luna’s case, I honestly don’t think the acepromazine was misused, though I hope she had some type of pain medication to accompany it.
You bring up a good point though. There are legitimate uses for acepromazine and it’s not a bad drug in itself. I use it quite frequently in my practice. But it is not appropriate to use it to relieve fear because it is simply incapable of doing that.
I do think acepromazine can be helpful in some mild anxiety situations. It is as Dr. Huston says a sedative, not an anti-anxiety medication, and sure not a cure all. I have seen it help some dogs who just need the edge taken off and do not have full blown phobias. For those dogs, more appropriate meds are available, and behavior modification can help dogs on any point of the fear spectrum! I am glad we have so many more options for fearful dogs these days!
Hi Dr. Shawn. Thanks for sharing your opinion. I too am glad we have so many more options for fearful dogs now. And thank you for making the point about behavior modification because that really should be part of the therapy for any fearful dog, regardless of what medications are used.
Thank you Lorie for sharing your opinion, the BSAVA position and Dr. Overall’s video. I also disagree, with all three of you. First of all, and most important, acepromazine works in most cases. I have had NEVER had a client come back to me stating their dog seemingly was more upset by noises of fireworks after ace. I have had MANY that have come back after receiving valium for same.
I agree that the single best method of treatment for this disorder is behavioural therapy and we have put it to good use using BarkBusters and their techniques. This method involves treating dogs as social animals and dealing with their behavioural flaws with that in mind. The recommendation of the BSAVA with regard to Anipryl and other long term drugs is of course absurd. It is a practice building technique to be sure but the breakdown products of Anipryl are, get this, amphetamine and methamphetamine. Not going to put any of my clients dogs on that.
Dr. Overall believes dogs experience life, have the same emotions, etc. just as we humans do. Her argument directed toward her human audience of “how would YOU like it….” is not a scientific argument and should be rejected. Dogs are NOT little people. They have their own separate and distinct neural pathways, social structures and metabolic pathways.
Thank you again for raising this controversy. I await, like yourself I am sure, the introduction of a better short term drug for this problem. However, for any veterinarian to essentially shout out in a public forum that acepromazine is a horrible drug and should not be used for storm phobias NOT based on evidence based medicine is sensational to be sure but not professional. A better way to approach this may have been to state why you had concerns with the drug. It does lower blood pressure and heart rate, therefore is NOT a good drug for all dogs, etc.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Robert.
I also believe that behavioral therapy, including behavioral modification which is perhaps the most important aspect, is absolutely essential for dealing with any type of phobia that causes anxiety. I have never used Anipryl to treat thunderstorm or noise phobias, nor am I likely to. But I do think that, depending on the dog and his particular situation, some of the other “longer-acting” medications (fluoxetine, clomipramine, etc) may be useful, either alone or in combination with diazepam, alprozolam, etc. (These “long-acting” medications may not necessary though for thunderstorm or noise phobias where the situations are short-lived and/or infrequent. These situations may be better managed with “short-acting” medications or other means of controlling fear.) The advantage to these types of drugs, whether it be one of the “short-acting” or “long-acting” drugs alone, or a combination of the “long-acting” and “short-acting” medications, is that the dog is able to learn with them. That, in my opinion, is the objective.
I do not think that acepromazine is a horrible drug and I do use it, but I do not use it for behavioral issues. I stand by my statement that acepromazine is not an appropriate drug for a dog that is anxious. It does not make sense to me to treat an anxious dog with a medication that does not relieve its anxiety. With so many other safer, more effective solutions, I simply do not believe that acepromazine is a good choice, at least not as a stand-alone medication. That opinion is shared by the veterinary behaviorists that I’ve spoken to also.
However, I do think it is useful (and I disagree that it is sensational or not professional) to be able to have these types of discussions. I do think the public has a right to know that the use of acepromazine for fear is now considered to be at best controversial.
Thank you for stopping by to share your opinion. I think that perhaps, on this issue, the two of us will simply have to agree to disagree. Please understand that no personal insult is implied.