Dr. Angie Krause (00:00)
Welcome back to Tales of Truth, where we tell the truth about veterinary medicine. I'm Dr. Angie, and this is my co-host and veterinary nurse extraordinaire JoJo And today we're going to talk about anxiety in dogs, which

JoJo (00:14)
This is a

giant topic. Giant. Nope, no way.

Dr. Angie Krause (00:16)
Right, so we won't get to it all.

Do we have, I know you have our course schedule this year, are we gonna teach a course about this this year?

JoJo (00:24)
It is not on the course list, but we could add it to the course list and Let's just launch this with Dr. Angie offers online consultations and anxiety in your dog is a great reason to book a consultation So

Dr. Angie Krause (00:39)
It's true. It's true. It is undertreated.

Anxiety is undertreated. And I think it's one, one aspect of your dog's health that's missed in the exam room. So like your yearly physicals or every six months or however you're doing it with your dog. a lot of times veterinarians don't ask about this and it's not because they're not good. It's just because there's so much to talk about and, it can be missed, but just like people.

Dogs have anxiety, a lot of anxiety. They really suffer from our own sedentary lifestyles. And we just filmed an episode about breeds and breeds that you should get or maybe not get But you know, when we have a lot of these breeds, these herding breeds like cattle dogs and border collies, and we put them in our apartment or make them live in the suburbs, that can be really stressful for them. And I would say

at least half of my patients have some sort of anxiety, whether it's situational anxiety, whether it's generalized anxiety, it really affects our dog's quality of life. And it also is something that people are really resistant to treating. Like when I say like,

JoJo (01:50)
I was gonna say

those same two things. I want to validate your 50 % because I think I read somewhere just recently in some scientific journal article that it's like 70 to 70, 70 to 80 % of dogs have some form of anxiety. So the 50 % tracks. And then the other thing I gonna say is I think we're doing to dogs what we do to people where mental health issues are dismissed and we don't want to treat it.

Dr. Angie Krause (02:05)
yeah, I agree.

Yes.

No, and what the most common thing I hear people say is like, you know, maybe I'll have a really anxious dog and we're gonna talk about all the natural things I do first, but sometimes I have a dog in front of me where I'm like, we're not gonna try the natural things. And I'm like, you know, we really should try some Prozac. And the immediate response is, I would feel so guilty putting my dog on Prozac. Like.

JoJo (02:39)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (02:40)
because the perception of doing an SSRI serotonin, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for your dog is that you're going to change their personality or make them sedate all the time and that feels so awful for people to think of, which is definitely not what we're going to do. And the other thing people get scared of is they think just because we start Prozac, it doesn't mean that their dog has to be on Prozac forever.

JoJo (03:07)
No, sometimes starting them on an SSRI or some kind of anti-anxiety can help the training. So if there are some things that we can train our behaviorally, like exposure therapy, right? Like getting them to the vet again and again, if they have those anxiety meds on board, sometimes it makes all of that feel easier for them and then you can wean off. Is that fair to say? Like, I don't want to, I mean, I mean, I've just seen that happen where you can use it.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:30)
⁓ yeah, yeah, absolutely.

JoJo (03:34)
temporarily.

Dr. Angie Krause (03:35)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, and I think these drugs are really safe that we're using. And if they don't work, we don't have to keep using them. But I think I would argue from a holistic perspective, not treating your dog's anxiety causes them to have so much more cortisol and stress hormones, which is super inflammatory and really hard on the body to always be in that kind of sympathetic.

JoJo (03:37)
For sure.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:02)
like sympathetic tone of like I'm running from a bear or my life's in danger or I need to protect the herd right now. And I think that from an integrative perspective, you're doing more for overall wellbeing by using pharmaceuticals to treat anxiety.

JoJo (04:20)
Absolutely. Imagine being in that state of hypervigilance all the time.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:24)
I can, because I've had times in my life where I was like that. Yeah. Yeah.

JoJo (04:26)
That's so... Right, if we can speak from the human aspect, right? Like the...

I had to use them for a period of time too, just... And I was able to come off of them once I had the tools in place. But when you're heightened, you cannot one function two take in new information. Like, you just feel like, I'm going to die. That's what it feels like.

Dr. Angie Krause (04:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah, no, they think they're going to die. And yeah, I've definitely gone through periods of my life where I didn't know it, but I had really severe generalized anxiety that I just learned to live with. And I think our canine patients are the same. They're just learning to live with this.

JoJo (04:56)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Now I saw a behaviorist who was, which by the way, we have behaviorist for dogs. There's a reason, right? That that is becoming, it seems to be an emerging field in my opinion. Like it's gaining traction. But I love this one behaviorist and I wish I remembered names, but she said something like, how to know if you have a breed that will bite. And she's like, if your dog has teeth.

Dr. Angie Krause (05:26)
Yeah.

I saw that.

JoJo (05:39)
Your dog will bite. Has the potential to bite.

Dr. Angie Krause (05:39)
Yeah

What? mean, that's true, but like, have you ever been bitten by a golden retriever? Anyways, that's not the point of this podcast.

JoJo (05:49)
No, no, right, no, it's totally not.

Goldens are the best.

Dr. Angie Krause (05:56)
Yeah. So, yeah, I know it's really important to, to kind of understand that one, your dog probably has some amount of anxiety and that we can treat it. But if you want to start naturally, there are a lot of things that are pretty effective for mild to moderate anxiety or

JoJo (06:14)
Start there. Can

you describe what they're seeing? How does somebody know if their dog has mild to moderate anxiety? What are they seeing?

Dr. Angie Krause (06:23)
gosh, that's

such a good question. I'm trying to think of signs that would be just in mild to moderate anxiety. So let's just talk about signs in general that your dog is anxious. Immediately I think of dogs that won't cross thresholds.

JoJo (06:25)
Yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (06:41)
Dogs that are scared of certain surfaces. Dogs that are scared to see other dogs. Dogs that want to, bite the runner, bite the bike running by. Now, it could be some dogs just want to do that because they have like a high prey drive. So some of these can overlap with other symptoms of other conditions. Dogs that are barking a lot.

I mean, if your dog's biting you or growling at you, there's a good chance there's anxiety. There could also be some other kind of noise phobia, thunder.

JoJo (07:12)
Situational noise noise phobias so fire fireworks

and thunder. Yeah summer some of those summer dogs Yeah, ⁓ wind is a brutal one wind is brutal car rides. Yeah

Dr. Angie Krause (07:20)
Wind. Yeah. Yeah. Especially here. ⁓ whimpering. Yeah.

Car rides. Like, yeah. Usually people know like a lot of panting, lot of pacing. So if those signs are mild to moderate, my gosh. Yeah. That is definitely not a mild to moderate sign. ⁓ you could probably try some natural things.

JoJo (07:39)
hiding under the bed.

Dr. Angie Krause (07:47)
And you could try some natural things anyways to get started. And sometimes when you have some of these kind of more herbal or plant-based supplements on board, you might need less of whatever pharmaceutical you're using. So I really like to start with CBD. And yes, this is what we use. So if you have a dog, yeah, we have it in chews and we have it in oil.

JoJo (08:12)
Yeah.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:12)
my gosh, have so much cat hair on my face right now.

JoJo (08:13)
It's so funny. I think she has been like, your nose.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:19)
my

gosh. know. Cause she just keeps hanging out with me and then I keep petting her and now it's just getting stuck on my face. Anyways. So we use hemp RX forte. So show the forte. It's a giant bottle. So this stuff is expensive. There it is. But not only is it concentrated, but it'll last you a long time. And if you have a medium to large breed dog, that's what you're going to want to get. We are multiple dogs. Yeah.

JoJo (08:41)
or multiple dogs in a household. Go with this.

Dr. Angie Krause (08:46)
We do have the chews. Show them the chews.

JoJo (08:48)
Okay, I used to chews with my dog because she loves them. Yeah, because it's just easy and it feels like happy time between us. Right?

Dr. Angie Krause (08:50)
You do.

Yes, I

know that is nice. It does feel good. Now the problem with this chews which I hate to tell you about all the problems of things that we carry, but if you have like a 60 pound dog and we need to maybe do 20 milligrams twice a day, that's a lot of chews. And so financially I don't love that for you. But if you have a smaller dog.

JoJo (09:11)
Yeah, you're not going to do that.

I also feel like your

dog could get a stomach ache if you're having to do the 20 milligrams. That's just a lot. That's a lot of chews the CBD oil is is a pure product. Like there's no additives. Whereas to make a chew, you have to add things. So

Dr. Angie Krause (09:22)
You think so.

So I like to start with CBD. I take CBD myself for anxiety. take a lot. take 50 milligrams every day and it just, it w if I was like having an anxiety attack or having an extra anxious day for me, it's not going to help right then and there. But when I take 50 milligrams every day, it just kind of evens out my thought quality throughout the whole.

day. So I really like CBD for anxious pets. And the nice thing is, is it has other benefits like with arthritis or other inflammation, because even though we are saying, look, it's CBD, it's actually whole hemp extract. And so you're getting all of these, they call them phyto cannabinoids. So all these other active ingredients in the hemp plant and

CBD just gets all the press, but it's not even the best one. We have CBN, CBG, like there are all these other components that are probably helping with anxiety as well.

JoJo (10:22)
Mm.

And if you want to dive deeper into CBD, we have an entire episode on CBD. So if you're like, ooh, do I want to try CBD? Let us convince you. Go listen to the full episode.

Dr. Angie Krause (10:41)
Yes.

Yes. And if you're not going to do the HempRx Forte and dose off of our dosing chart and you decide to get another product, if you get a product that was made for pets and you follow the dosing guidelines on the back, chances are you're under dosing. just, these companies tend to not use therapeutic dosing. And so it'll look really cost effective. And you're like, look, this bottle is only $30.

And but there's hardly any CBD in there. So don't do that.

JoJo (11:11)
Right,

right, this bottle, y'all, it has, I just said y'all, 1800 drops in it. And so that, that for some dogs, last months

Dr. Angie Krause (11:15)
Texas.

Yeah, yeah, so that's what you want to do. And keep in the refrigerator.

JoJo (11:26)
Please. Yeah, it'll last longer. Yes. So CBD is something if you have an anxious dog, they should be using it daily, twice daily. Not just situational. Like you're not going to that necessarily once the thunderstorm starts. It's not going to solve that issue.

Dr. Angie Krause (11:27)
Yeah, and if you leave it out overnight, it's going to be okay. Yes, don't worry about it. Just put it back in the refrigerator.

Yes.

No, no, no, no. Yeah. you're, I

mean, nothing's going to solve that issue with, waiting until the thunderstorm starts, unless you have injectable narcotics or some kind of injectable sedation. There's nothing I can do. Yes. But yes. Yes. I don't know the little ear muffs. They are really cute.

JoJo (11:52)
That's so true.

Yeah. Thunder Ears, or whatever those are called, the Thunder Ears, what are those called? What they called? Yeah, they're so cute.

Dr. Angie Krause (12:07)
Okay, so I like that. And the other product I like has L-theanine in it, which helps increase serotonin. Nutricalm there we go.

JoJo (12:12)
Mmm, Nutri-Calm. Well,

I pulled out the big one. These are also chews. Because these are kind of situational. I use these situationally. So that's why I like the chews.

Dr. Angie Krause (12:22)
You can use those situationally. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, you can use them. I would just do them like an hour ahead of time. But L-theanine can be a little sedating for some dogs, which is nice. Most dogs it's not, but it can just kind of help increase the overall sense of well-being. And you can use them every day or situationally. And I suppose you can use CBD situationally, but I haven't found it to be quite as effective that way.

JoJo (12:34)
Nice.

Right, and the Nutri-Calm does come in a liquid. So if you, and I can't remember what kind of flavor it is. It's flavored, so it's palatable, and then also a capsule. So you have all kinds of choices in terms of administration.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:04)
Yeah, I would get the capsule. But I guess the chews are nice because then you don't have to hide it in anything. You are. You're like, I'm willing to pay extra to make this easy for me.

JoJo (13:09)
I'm all about the treats. Yeah, I guess. Yeah,

mean, does get the Forte drops in her meals twice a day. But you know, sometimes when it's fun, when I know something is, I don't know, like when I know she's gonna be home alone, it might be like the extra dosing that I might throw the treats in.

Dr. Angie Krause (13:20)
She does, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So that's where I mean, herbally there are other things that we could talk about for your specific dog. Like if you wanted to do a phone consult, we could talk about other herbal formulas. But when I think about generally the herbs I use, those would be my, my top two supplement and herb. And then I really like pharmaceuticals for my medium, like moderately to severely anxious dogs. I

I love Prozac or Zoloft or any of those. It can be really helpful. I've had a lot of dogs just have such a better quality of life.

JoJo (14:03)
Life changing. We've had people who have resisted giving it to their dog who once their dog has been on it, it was just this aha moment of wow, like so much changes for them.

Dr. Angie Krause (14:04)
Yeah.

Yeah. So

much changes. Yeah. So I really want to encourage anyone who's thinking about trying them, like any of the Prozac, Clonidine, Gabapentin, Trazodone even, just to give them a try. So we have our SSRIs and our medications that we're giving every day that are not sedating for the most part. And then we have our situational drugs.

I'd say the top three that I see used are gabapentin, trazodone, and clonidine. And I just want to say a word about trazodone. I don't think it's that great of an anxiolytic, meaning I think it's sedating, but I don't know how much it takes care of anxiety. I often think it needs to be with something else, so I'll use it with gabapentin, which is for nerve pain.

JoJo (14:57)
Hmm.

Dr. Angie Krause (15:04)
but it does help with some anxiety and it's a little bit sedating. And then for my really anxious dogs, I'll add in some clonidine, which is really great for like noise phobias and other kinds of anxiety. So sometimes if we know it's going to be 4th of July or we have something coming up that's going to be really anxiety producing, I'll use all three of those. And I think it's very safe to use all three. Yeah.

JoJo (15:29)
That's a pretty common cocktail,

it seems, for all kinds of situations, whether it's vet visits or, like you said, and I don't know, you haven't really used it for car rides. We don't have a lot of dogs that have that kind of.

Dr. Angie Krause (15:42)
I use it for car rides. Yeah, I do. I think a lot of veterinarians just start with trazodone. And I kind of hate that. I think we should start with trazodone and calipentin at the minimum. Because

JoJo (15:43)
Yeah. So

I only think of

trazodone as a sedative.

Dr. Angie Krause (15:56)
It's not very good by itself.

feel like trazodone is used by itself too often. So don't be afraid to ask your veterinarian just for a little gabapentin, a little clonidine. And we can use...

JoJo (16:06)
And I would

say be open to things taking time. And like it sometimes takes time for anxiety to be resolved or to lessen and that there's some trial and error. Like it's not like you're a veterinarian gives you this and it's going to work. Like the the trazodone, gabapentin, clonidine makes my dog a nightmare. Like she just, it flips a switch for her. So it wasn't the magic cocktail. Right. And I think we have to give room.

Dr. Angie Krause (16:10)
What do mean?

⁓ yeah.

Yeah.

JoJo (16:32)
to veterinarians to figure out what's the right fit is.

Dr. Angie Krause (16:35)
We still haven't found the right fit for her. And I just want everyone to know that those results are not typical. Sometimes, yeah, usually they don't make them worse, but sometimes it's just not enough. But that can happen, especially with benzodiazepines like Valium or Xanax. Some dogs do have the opposite reaction. Instead of getting sedated, they get really hopped up. So you.

JoJo (16:40)
Fair.

Mm-hmm.

Right, it's like Benadryl.

Benadryl is sedating for so many people and then there's that subset that just makes them extra hyper. So I mean, I just want people to give permission that things are never a one size fits all. So it might take you and your pet a few tries to figure out what the good fit is.

Dr. Angie Krause (17:08)
Yeah, yeah.

No.

Yes,

absolutely. So if you would like to learn more about anything else we have to offer, and maybe we'll be doing an anxiety course at some point in the future, maybe that's a 2027 project, you can get a course for free on us using the code truth tales spelled T-A-L-E-S or T-A-I-L-S if you go to boulderholisticvet.com.

and go to learn with us. that right? Learn with us, learn more, learn with us. I don't know. You're learning, like go to wherever it says learn. And then we have a course selection and you can use that code to get a free course on us because you made it to the end of this podcast and we're so happy to spend this time with you. And if you want to talk about your dog's anxiety, you can go to book a consultation, boulderholisticvet.com.

JoJo (17:50)
Mm-hmm, or learn more. Yeah.

You

Dr. Angie Krause (18:13)
and you can book a time on my calendar and I will review your dogs or your cats medical records and I'll help you put together a plan for their anxiety.

JoJo (18:23)
Right, because we barely, barely, barely scratched the surface. And that was three barelys. But then there is so much more holistically, so much more pharmaceutically. Yeah. Definitely. Good job. OK. Bye-bye.

Dr. Angie Krause (18:28)
Barely.

That's all we could do in 20 minutes. Okay, we'll see you next time.

Bye.