Dr. Dog

I took Rocket to see his doggy psychiatrist for his yearly check in and sit down and he was quite excited to see her and visit the  vet school and be on the grounds and be in such an interesting building and be around furniture that so many other animals and people have been on before him... and she was appalled  . It was a great visit.

Apparently, she had been hoping that he would be slightly less excited by the prospect of seeing her again. It wasn't like he was agitated,  I would say he was "curious" and wanted to "explore".  I think its just about how you frame the behavior, true, he was a little excited but I really didn't see what she was seeing.

She was frankly, appalled. I don't know what she was hoping to see but he's a weim not a basset hound, I would have liked it if he could have been a little more obedient - but its not as if he was climbing the walls and barking uncontrollably, peeing in corners and destroying the furniture for gawds sake! He was wandering and exploring the rather large room and his behavior I have to admit, was very distracting  for me - it did make it hard to speak with the doctor.

I spoke more with her at more length than I have with my own doctor! We talked about his behavior, his quirks, his good days and his bad days, She was shocked that he does so well in crowds and in public and that he is a star of his daycare. She found it hard to fathom that this nervous wreck  in her office is such a good natured animal under most circumstances. The only time he is not a good natured guy and charming as hell is when he is the only guy in the room and there is no one there for him to charm. He has good days and bad days and Monday was not a good day, he was wound up all day.

We did talk about upping his doggy prozac to four pills a day from three pills in the morning to three pills in the morning and one in the evening in addition to what he's getting now in the evening weening him off one of his other meds that is getting expensive and causing me to become agitated - with the caveat that if he starts to show signs of having problems with going off the med, that I put him back on post haste. She also thinks that as he has reached full on adult malehood and gained weight that he may be ready to up his doses to keep up with his growth. It will be interesting to see if we can calm him down and even him out again. Right now he's sleeping in a well managed, medicated  dog ball.