Doggie Xanax

The thought brings up images of tiny little poochies with painted toenails, bows on their ears and silly little doggie outfits. If I were a dog and treated like a doll/child I know I would be stressed about it, I would want a Xanax. My dogs however are actually dogs. They’re big, both between 80-90lbs, black and furry. One of them more so than the other and he HATES the groomer. It’s rather comical actually, me trying to force him from the car through the groomer’s door is an exercise in patience, strength and stubbornness. But I digress, this is supposed to be about why my dogs need Xanax.

To start with, I live in Utah, beautiful country if you’ve never been here, pretty blue mountains up north, red rock desert down south, gorgeous. There are some drawbacks though, most recently the new legislation allowing fireworks through the entire month of July. It used to be that fireworks were allowed the week of the 4^th and the week of the 24^th (pioneer day), that was hard enough on the poor doggies. Now though, it’s gotten rather ridiculous. My dogs used to like to sleep outside in the summer, they don’t like it now, in fact one could argue that they don’t appear to like sleep at all now.

It’s the 22^nd and there have been fireworks of some sort or another pretty much every day. My poor dogs must think the world is coming to an end. They now stay closed in the bedroom with us, we have to keep them in the room because if we don’t Dozer wanders all over the house peeing, that’s not normal behavior for him, it’s caused by stress as are the red irritated hairless spots on his legs where he has licked his skin raw. I don’t know if any of you have experienced being shut in a room with two stressed out dogs, but let me tell ya, dog stress smells bad and makes the whole room stifling. Generally, my nights are spent turning back and forth listening to the frantic panting and pacing with an occasional whimper thrown in for variety. I have no idea if this behavior will end with July since even on the rare occasions when there are no fireworks, they seem to stress in anticipation.

Please, I need some good sleep, as I'm sure do they. I think I'll call the vet.