Zaltana Anatolians

Old dog and his young friends,



Zazou often sleeps with part of his tongue sticking out, that gives him a real funny look, for the last few months I have had to give him Valium because of anxiety issues. I actually made an appointment to have him put to sleep because his anxiety was so bad that I felt his quality of life was not adequate any more. My vet checked his heart and heard a very pronounced murmur, so we decided to try him on some Lasix to see if that would help his heart. I have really seen an improvement in his attitude since he is on the Lasix, I was able to decrease his Valium from one tablet every afternoon to 1/2 tablet, and the last two days I have tried without and he did well. So it looks like he has a heart problem and that may have contributed to the anxiety. We also tried him on a different medication for anxiety, Clomicalm, but after the first dose he got picky about food and after the second dose he stopped eating, lack of appetite is one of the major side effects of this type of drug, and it was really interesting to see how quickly he went form loving to eat to not wanting to eat at all. After 12 hours he started eating again and since I didn't give him another dose he was back to normal the next day. He is really amazing to me as he doesn't have much mobility anymore and has a very hard time getting up and getting around, but nothing seems to deter him from doing what he wants to do, he makes his rounds on both sides of the property, loves to go for rides, comes to the front when he hears my car and he never misses a meal, he is the only one of my dogs who will remind me that it's time for dinner if I am too slow and he will do his version of a happy dance when I pick up his bowl to feed him.