Acepromazine for Dogs is a Bad Idea

Acepromazine, also known as ace, has been used as a tranquilizer for years. However, acepromazine for dogs has recently shown some pretty nasty side effects. Before giving your dog acepromazine, even if your vet recommended it, it’s important to understand why scared dogs should never take acepromazine. 

Now, I’m not a veterinarian, but I do work with moderate to severe dog fearfulness and anxiety on the daily, have earned multiple nationally recognized animal behavior certifications, have worked as a vet tech for many years, am currently a psychology major, and currently work for a veterinarian pursuing my animal behavior certification. I also learned the hard way about the pitfalls of acepromazine for dogs, and I can tell you I’ll never do it again. So yes, I do feel I can speak on this subject.

Acepromazine Won’t Reduce Fear or Anxiety

Acepromazine Side Effects

While acepromazine for dogs will tranquilize the body, it doesn’t sedate a dog’s brain, which is where fear and anxiety are created. After taking acepromazine, your dog’s body is unable to move, but his brain is fully functional and freaking out.

To understand the effect of acepromazine on dogs, let’s look at this situation from our perspective. Let’s say you’re terribly afraid of loud noises and decide to take acepromazine to reduce your fear. After 20 minutes or so, you hear fireworks exploding in your neighbor’s backyard. When you try to move away from the sound, your body doesn’t move. However, your brain is still responding with fear. You start to cry because you can’t move, close the curtains or scream for help.

Yes, this is what happens when dogs take acepromazine and then are exposed to fearful stimuli (i.e. loud sounds, anxiety-filled car rides, thunderstorms, scary dogs and people).

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Telling an anxious dog to relax works about just as well as telling someone on fire to not think about it. It’s impossible.[/perfectpullquote]

Acepromazine For Dogs Will Make Fears Worse

Can you imagine being stuck in your body, yet unable to move while being exposed to your deepest and darkest fears? When dogs are repeatedly exposed to scary situations, their fear worsens. Remember, anxiety is a symptom of fear and it’s learned. Anxiety is predicting your fear will happen.

Let’s say a man wearing a red shirt mugs you. You’ve never had a problem with men wearing red shirts before, but you just learned they’re scary (fear). The next time you see a man wearing a red shirt, you’ll likely become anxious (anxiety) because of your past scary experience (fear). It would take many positive experiences with red shirt-wearing men before your anxiety reduces, which takes time.

Now, let’s say you took acepromazine to reduce your fear of red shirt-wearing men during a party. Then, a red shirt man mugs you at the party while you were completely helpless and unable to move because you consumed ace, yet your brain was fully engaged. Now, your fear is complete terror. I think you now understand how acepromazine can worsen your dog’s fear.

Medications for Anxiety in Dogs

Trazodone for Dogs

Thankfully, there are a couple of dog medications that can reduce anxiety (and fear) within your dog’s brain, causing his body to relax. By far, I’ve seen amazing results giving my dog trazodone before he’s exposed to something scary. Many of my dog training clients have had great results with Xanax (alprazolam) too, but I’ve personally witnessed better results using a combination of trazodone and alprazolam.

After Sobek, my two-year-old Rottweiler, had his ACL repaired, he was given strict bed rest for 12 weeks. Keeping a young dog quiet for that long is pretty impossible, so our orthopedic veterinary specialist prescribed trazodone twice a day during that period. Honestly, we couldn’t have made it through the healing process without it, especially since jumping on our bed once could have destroyed his orthopedic repair.

If your dog requires strict crate rest, ask your veterinarian to prescribe trazodone. Please never use acepromazine for dogs. Trazodone calms the brain, so a completely bored dog doesn’t panic when his body is unable to respond. No one should be trapped in an unresponsive body with a completely engaged brain ever—that’s torture.

Drug-Free Ways to Reduce Anxiety and Fear

Fear and anxiety can be draining, so I definitely recommend trying drug-free ways to help your dog. Don’t rely only on drug-free options though; sometimes, dog medications are needed to prevent anxiety and fear from becoming worse. Remember, the more your dog freaks out, the worse it’ll get. Telling an anxious dog to relax works about just as well as telling someone on fire to not think about. It’s impossible. Check out a few drug-free ideas here. As with everything, a combination approach always works best.

Be your dog’s voice. Keep him safe and fear free. 🙂