What kind of calming chews do you give Solstice?
I currently give her Composure (also comes in a size for smaller dogs I think). It works the best so far out of the calming products I have tried and we’ll be sticking with it for a while. I actually hadn’t used it for a few months until today, as we were talking about calming products in our previous class.
I have also tried Rescue Remedy, Pet Naturals calming chews, EnduraPet Calming Plus, and Excel Calm-Quil tablets. Rescue Remedy and Calm-Quil did nothing for Solstice, and the Pet Naturals helped a bit but not as much as Composure. The EnduraPet I’ve only used a sample one time so far, it seemed to help, but don’t have enough experience with it to say if it works better than Composure.
My friend who is a vet and has Solstice’s littermate Kevin recently recommended Zylkene to me and said it has worked really well for Kevin and other dogs she has recommended it for. Kevin has had similar fear/anxiety issues as Solstice but not quite to her degree. I may try Zylkene at some point, but it looks pretty darn expensive so we’ll stick with the Composure for now.
For anyone looking at calming products, you kind of have to experiment a bit to see what works for your dog. And there are certainly many more options than the ones I listed. Not every product works for every dog, for example lots of dogs are helped by Rescue Remedy but for both my dogs it does nothing. And you also have to play with the dosage and timing. In my experience it takes at least half an hour for calming products to start kicking in, with maximum effect usually after one hour and lasting several hours depending on if you do normal dosage or double/triple dosage.
Composure says it can be used daily, but I only use it during specifically stressful times, like agility class or trials or vet visits. And usually double or triple dose for Solstice.
