Now, there are three opinions coming from three different individuals who have experience with dogs.
First, I will discuss the thoughts of Mark Derr who is the author of "How the Dog Became the Dog" and runs the blog, "Dog's Best Friend" for Psychology Today.
In his debate, "Trying Training Dogs Before Using Drugs," he finds as a society, we run to big pharmaceuticals to treat almost anything and everything, and most of the time it does relieve us, but temporarily before we have to take another dose. On the basis of dogs, we are treating normal behaviors because we are too lazy to pull them out of solitary and run them through a park. So we keep them confined to their kennels, drug them up, and either we will use these drugs to speed up the conditioning process or we just use the drugs because they work and we really have no way of weening the bad behavior. Sometimes dogs do have a brain that was not wired properly which is an entirely different topic from behaviors that are natural. Dogs are meant to be exercised and socialized with.
Next, I will discuss Carlo Siracusa's thoughts in his debate, "Pet Drugs Help With the Right Guidance." Carlo Siracusa is the director of the Small Animal Behavior Service at the veterinary hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and he also does lectures at the School of Veterinary Medicine about small animal behavior.
Carlo feels if we go to a vet and get medication to help us in conditioning our pets with a behavioral issue that needs help, it is okay, rather than us going to our cabinet to give our pets the medicine we, humans, take. He finds that our environments can affect us and can affect pets. Not always can we modify the environment that the pet will change its behavior. Through the help of medications along with conditioning can we help our pets.
Last, but not least is Jeannine Berger who is the director of behavior resources at the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and we will discuss her thoughts from her debate, "Treatment for Dogs' Anxiety Must Be Comprehensive."
She feels just as humans go to the doctor to be diagnosed with ADHD or sleep disorders and get medicine to help us, so should our pets. We should be educated about the possibly expected outcomes from it, and it is okay to use natural remedying medicines as long as a vet okays it. She feels that medicine is an important part to treating an animal's behavior because it calms them down so that our points of conditioning can get across to the animal. If an animal has extreme anxiety, we should not avoid it and put our pets on medications, since it is our pet's welfare that we must worry about.
My Thoughts:
Through my experience with many animals including my late dog, and my current cats, I feel medicine is NOT an acceptable method. In humans alone, I feel we rely too much on medicine. I mean, sleeping pills, retinol for people with ADHD, etc... This is absolutely insane. All animals have behaviors that need to be tamed through the way we show ourselves. Just from the experience with my four cats who came from different environments. Two of my cats I rescued showed signs of previous abusive environments, try sweeping the food dish area while the cats were eating, I'd have more food flying around the kitchen because they thought I would beat them with the broom. Now, they are fine with me sweeping while they eat. I have conditioned them to sit on command, and follow some of the instructions I say. Not to mention, they never got medicine
The two same cats I mentioned were also spayed and neutered (one is male and one is female), and when I had to give them a sort of cat morphine to simmer the pain, they were obviously on a little "high." When they came off that high, they were INSANE. I quickly learned after the first day of their surgeries, that high does of medicine to simmer the pain, I was not going to continue. I was worried they were overdosed. When I noticed they felt pain, I gave a small dose and that was only for four days after the surgery. After that, they were okay with their pain. On my last cat, I had her fixed at the SPCA, and they were kind of following my method of pain management. They gave them medicine the first day, and I was quite impressed, afterwards she was left to her own devices. She was absolutely FINE.
Of course, what I mentioned above was for pain rather than behavior, but looking at it, a lot of owners do not really take their dogs for a good exercise or socially interact, and then they claim their dogs "bad." Well I hate to burst your bubble, get off your lazy butt and walk that dog or play with your cat, I'm sure you need the exercise too.
Animals also respond to you the way you respond to them, if you scream at them or behave hyper, they will behave hyper. If you behave calmly, they will too. They are reflections of YOU as the owner. My cats are all really calm, maybe they get a little crazy when I leave the house, but slowly I am fixing that separation anxiety too. Bottom line, medicine is not necessary, put some effort and you will receive. Next thing you know, we will have animal drug rehab centers. Really?