Thoughts on medicating our dogs
When our cattle dog, Scout, was diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy, we didn’t immediately put her on a daily anticonvulsant. I was surprised to realize our choice to wait gave some people the impression we were “against” or “anti” medication. (In case there’s still any confusion, we are not!)
The conversations got me thinking about our decision making process and feelings about meds as a whole. Medicating our pets can be a controversial topic:
Some dog trainers belittle vets and behaviorists who prescribe drugs (particularly for behavioral problems), saying that proper training can fix issues without meds.
Other professionals and owners swear by the positive effects pets have experienced on prescription drugs.
Some people are generally uncomfortable with modern western medicine, opting for natural, holistic remedies whenever possible.
Many of us fall somewhere in between. We see the merits of various meds while also wanting to prescribe them with caution.
Whether or not medication is necessary (or even a good option for a particular animal) is a complex discussion without perfect answers. Every dog, owner, and situation is different!
Here’s a deep dive into 1) our personal experience putting Scout on a daily anticonvulsant and 2) my thoughts on medicating pets in general, including potential costs I’m cautious about and potential benefits that excite me.
TLDR: I support meds—given after thoughtful risk assessments
We initially held off on medicating our cattle dog for her epilepsy because her seizures were few and far between. The costs of our medication options outweighed the benefits at first.
When it became clear that Scout’s seizures were only getting worse, we went ahead and put her on a twice-daily anticonvulsant.
Overall, I believe medication can be incredibly helpful for dealing with a range of problems—physical and mental—in both us humans and our companion animals.
I also think medication can be used in an unhealthy way. Affecting body chemistry is not a decision to take lightly.
It’s important to realize the potential impact of side effects when medicating our pets, especially because dogs can’t verbally tell us how they feel.
Every owner gets to make their own risk assessments with the vet teams they trust.
Our personal experience with seizure medication
You can read complete details of Scout’s epilepsy and our treatment in this article.
It’s a lot less taboo to medicate our dogs for a physical health problem than a mental one. That said, I think thoughtful cost-benefit analyses are important in every situation!
Here’s the high level of our choices about Scout’s seizure medication.
Why we avoided anticonvulsants at first
After Scout’s fourth seizure and before her fifth, our vet said she could go either direction with long-term therapy. We decided to hold off based on multiple factors.
Side effects of anticonvulsant options: They work by suppressing neural activity and can cause lethargy, lack of coordination, and more.
Scout’s previous sensitivity to medications: She’s taken a long time to come out of anesthesia or sedation ever since we adopted her.
Her quick recovery from each seizure: Without pre- or post-ictal symptoms, her seizures did not drastically affect her day. We all had a high quality of life even with the occasional episode.
The lifelong nature of the meds if we put her on them: The odds of being able to stop anticonvulsant treatment are low, making this a permanent decision.
The necessary blood work she’d need at regular intervals: Physical medication effects need to be closely monitored, which means added vet trips with extra tests and associated stress (plus financial commitment).
How spread out her episodes were: Scout initially went multiple months between each seizure.
Why we then decided to go with long-term meds
Unfortunately, Scout’s fifth seizure highlighted a concerning pattern—it happened only five weeks after her previous episode. Every seizure was getting closer together. Our cattle dog also experienced pre-ictal symptoms (sometimes called aura) for the first time and took longer to recover afterward. While she still bounced back within a half hour, our vet team felt all signs indicated her seizures would only get worse.
These changes shifted our cost-benefit analysis. Putting Scout on a twice-daily anticonvulsant now seemed like the best choice.
Side effects Scout has experienced from her seizure medication
She’s hungrier and thirstier, which means she has to use the bathroom more.
She’s less coordinated. She still wants to play—I am so thrilled about that!—but struggles to engage in the same games with the same intensity.
She’s groggy at the height of each dose. Her overall stamina also seems lower.
Some of these side effects have gotten a bit easier to manage over time. Others—particularly her increased hunger—have remained a challenge. (You can read more about how Scout’s physical health has affected her behavior, and how we’ve approached that in light of the layered stress model, in this article.)
Make no mistake: I’m still confident in our medication decision. At the time of writing, it’s been almost ten full weeks since Scout’s last seizure. That is an amazing win!
But even though we’re ultimately happy with her epilepsy treatment, putting our dog on a long-term daily prescription was not a simple choice. I’m proud we thought it through.
Things I’m cautious about when considering medication
In general, I think it’s important to realize a few things before putting our pets on any sort of medication.
Medication can have long-term physical effects
Nothing happens in a vacuum. A drug designed to help with one problem can exacerbate (or independently cause) other issues—whether prescribed for humans or for our dogs. While I wish we lived in a world where we could simply “take the good” and leave the rest behind, that’s not how modern medicine (or anything, sadly) works.
Each medication functions differently, but some common side effects include:
Potential for lasting organ damage (especially to the liver and kidneys)
Gastrointestinal upset (vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, stomach ulcers) that can negatively impact our dogs’ nutrition or lead to chronic food intolerances
Lethargy and dysphoria
Side effects don’t necessarily mean medications aren’t worth it. They just mean we need to understand the risks before making a decision! I think this is particularly important when looking at meds as a lifelong option versus a temporary treatment.
Our dogs can’t tell us exactly how they feel
Speaking of side effects: Our dogs can’t tell us precisely what they’re experiencing—and we have no way to verbally warn them how a medication might make them feel. It can take months to figure out the right dose and frequency of a drug even in humans with a huge vocabulary to describe the effects. (I’ve watched my mother, who has rheumatoid disease, cycle through many prescription changes over the last decade.) If medication can be this complicated in our own species… how can we know that we’ve found the right balance for our pets?
I lamented this the entire time we were considering whether or not to put Scout on a daily anticonvulsant. I kept wishing I could make the decision with her. That I could lay everything out on the table and say “Okay, here are our options. Which risks would you rather have? What matters most to you?”
The feeling only got worse when I remembered how stoic our dogs can be. Hiding pain is an instinct born of old evolutionary advantage. While the behavior doesn’t really help our modern pets, many of them still mask signs of discomfort. This only makes it harder to know what they’re experiencing.
There’s no easy answer here. But it’s important to think about. It can be dangerous to not know how our dogs feel, especially if we can’t catch symptoms of severe side effects until they’re too late to reverse. We need to be prepared to pay extra close attention to body language and behavior changes when giving medication.
Note: This isn’t limited to putting our dogs on prescription drugs
It is important to note that the “our dogs can’t tell us exactly how they feel” idea is not only relevant when making decisions about medication. We should consider this fact just as much when deciding:
What training methods and tools we use with our dogs
And so on.
Nothing is perfect. While it’s imperative that we think about potential med side effects and our dogs’ inability to verbally express how they feel, it would be unfair to write medication off entirely because of that.
We don’t want to merely “mask” problems
Sometimes medication is described as an “easy” or “lazy” way out, particularly when talking about dogs with behavioral problems. I disagree. An across-the-board statement like that is harsh, not necessarily true, and ultimately unproductive! You will never hear those words come out of my mouth. (Hey, look. I just said never.)
That said: I do think it’s worth considering how medication fits into our pets’ overall training and management plans.
Could the need for this medication be reduced or eliminated by addressing other gaps in our dog ownership foundation? Is there a chance we could better work through this problem in other ways (with fewer side effects) first? Things like providing appropriate outlets for biological fulfillment, building trust through advocacy, fostering a healthy social relationship…
Will medication allow us to cover up an issue without getting to its root cause? Which begs: Does the root cause matter in this particular situation? How are we defining what’s healthiest for all creatures involved?
At the end of the day: Are we comfortable being dependent on an external substance? How dependent do we think we’ll be? What are the odds we’ll be unable to access this medication at some point? Is this the most sustainable decision, for our individual situations, in the long run?
Reasons medication might be a great option
While I’m cautious about prescribing traditional drugs for everything our dogs ever struggle with, I also think medication can be a fantastic option!
Medication can be a temporary step to kickstart a long-term plan
Sometimes medication is a lifelong choice, like with our cattle dog’s anticonvulsant. Other times, drugs are a temporary aid through the initial hump of a physical or behavioral rehabilitation plan.
I know many dedicated owners who have used medication with their anxious dogs to “take the edge off” and help their pets properly process information. As they settle into a better mental state over time—and are able to actually learn healthy coping mechanisms—the dose can be reduced (or even fully eliminated).
To be clear: I don’t think weaning off medication always needs to be the end goal. Again, every dog, owner, and situation is different! But much like us humans will often fade out external support as we grow over time, it’s often an option for our pets as well.
While meds can cause side effects, they can also eliminate more severe problems
The core of my decision-making process about medication (and truly everything as a dog owner) is weighing the pros and cons. The costs and benefits. The risks.
Are there situations where the potential side effects of a drug are enough to make us steer away? Yes. That’s how we felt with Scout’s seizure medication before her epilepsy worsened.
On the flip side, are there situations where the potential benefits of a drug are more than worth its most common side effects? Absolutely!
Being a thoughtful dog owner isn’t about thinking that “side effects are always horrible” or “medications are miracles” across the board. It’s about trying to make an informed decision in each individual situation. About minimizing our dogs’ suffering and maximizing their comfort to whatever ratio we’re able to achieve.
If we have substances that can help certain issues—and we’re informed about their mechanisms and potential complications—there should be no shame in prescribing them.
Our dogs’ bodies function similarly to ours in many ways
Speaking of being informed…
In a perfect world, every creature functions perfectly without any external assistance. Our bodily processes do exactly what they should, when they should. Our hormones are balanced. We never have seizures, or get sick, or feel otherwise imbalanced.
That all sounds lovely. It’s just not our reality.
But thankfully medical professionals are understanding more about the brain and body than ever before—in both humans and other animals. We know many chemicals cause the same responses in our dogs as they do in us. We can think about our own feelings and side effects to try to imagine (in a species appropriate way) how our pets might experience a certain medication.
Modern research enables veterinarians and owners to make thoughtful decisions with an increasingly accurate picture of how a certain drug might function.
Everything is a cost-benefit analysis
Every owner gets to make their own risk assessments with the vet teams they trust.
Like just about everything in the dog world (and life in general), I don’t think medicating our pets is a black-and-white, all-or-nothing issue. Sometimes traditional drugs are a fantastic option! Other times they might not be the first choice.
So long as we think critically, evaluate available research, and remain grounded in the demands of our individual lifestyles (read: what’s best for your neighbor might not be best for you), I think we do right by our dogs.