- Foxy Brown, chilling out in upstate New York
She looks innocent enough, but this photo was taken last week, in the halcyon days before Foxy’s drug-fueled rampage through Bethesda.
Does my dog smoke crack? By all recent appearences, yes, although she’s given nary a nasty nip in our year on Calvert Street. It’s only in the last few months that she’s been implicated in a string of apartment-wreckings (mine).
Foxy is terrified by thunder, so each time it storms–like, every day in soggy Maryland summer–she attacks my door with her teeth and claws in a panic to get out. I come home from work to an array of styrofoam insulation bits, wood chips, and metal rods blanketing the foyer floor, and bloody paw prints up the wall.
What to do? Doc Side Vets said Xanax might help, so, feeling a bit foolish, I picked up a bottle of Alprazolam prescribed to “Foxy (dog)” at the Mount Vernon Pharmacy. (sidebar: I never thought I’d be one of those people who prescribe their pets Prozac, but here I am, one step away.)
That evening, at a dinner party in Bethesda, Foxy whined and paced, so I thought I’d try the Alprazolam to monitor its effects before leaving her alone drugged in my house. I gave her 2 mg, and when that didn’t calm her, I gave her another 2.
Fast forward to dessert–berries and Haagen Dazs–and Foxy was freaking. Let loose in the yard, she raced in circles, bumping into people and trees, yelping and whining. Bumping into things is not new for my darling mutt, since she’s blind, but she normally mellows out at my heel, waiting for her seeing eye person to show her around.
Later that night, after walks, food, petting and pleading, she paced back and forth whining and slurping every drop of water she could find and sending us, in an equal panic, to the wikipedia page where “hyperactivity” “restlessness” and “sleeplessness” were, ironically, listed under “side effects” for this medicine used to treat anxiety attacks.
Around midnight, on a rampage through the house, she found time to puke on the carpet–rawhide bone particles, grass and crud. That would have been the carpet in my boyfriend’s parents’ bedroom.
Long story short, Baltimore will be less one misbehaving crackhead because I am flushing Xanax and tabling other anxiety pills for her thunder troubles. Unfortunately, this means I’m back to the drawing board. Crates? Obedience class, for a 6-year old mutt? Summercamp in Alaska? Let me know if anyone reading this has ideas. I’m all out.
UPDATE:
Sarah brought this excellent lead to my attention: a “Calming Collar” made with herbs, with a sedative effect that supposedly lasts longer than medication. Plus, they are super cute. Check out the “bones on red” fabric.
A Baltimore Block 