Henley Pretzel gets nervous. He’s part chihuahua, what can we say? When nervous, he shakes, pants, and sings the song of his people.

Exhibit A:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BG5j-0Rooe0/?taken-by=mochaput&hl=en

Henley’s triggers seem to be the usual things that make most dogs nervous: Fireworks, thunder, lightening, loud trucks, car rides, etc. For the 4th of July this year, Henley and cousin Teton went camping to get away from the fireworks. Henley enjoyed his first firework-free camping trip.

Exhibit B:

Slug or adventure dog? Your pick. No middle ground.

When Henley gets nervous, we will always put on his Thundershirt (which we blogged about here), and basically hold him and pet him until he calms down.

Henley’s newest trigger is the portable air conditioner that hangs out in the bedroom at night. As best as we can tell, it’s not so much as having the air conditioner ON that bothers him, but it’s when we TURN it on when he’s in the room that makes him nervous. If it’s on when he enters the room, no big deal. Weird, right?)

In any event, putting him in his Thundershirt helps, but we were interested in what else we could do. I went over to my local Mud Bay store and the saleswoman recommended VetriScience Composure dog chews. I think they were about $15 for a 30 count at Mud Bay, but Chewy has them for $10! Score!

The chews are made of natural ingredients and chicken liver flavored. For dogs up to 51 lbs, it says they can have one chew per day or as needed, although it is safe to double or triple the dose in high stress scenarios.

Henley’s a 14-pounder, so last night, when I turned on the AC and he got nervous, we cut one of the chews in half for him. We didn’t know how it would affect him, so better to go on the small side to start. We also put on his Thundershirt, for good measure.

It took about 15 minutes or so, but we saw a noticeable change in him! He stopped shaking and started breathing more normally and pretty soon was fast asleep for the rest of the night. And he was up like normal this morning, raring to go on our morning walk! We’ll definitely be using the VetriScience Composure chews again if we need to, while simultaneously trying to avoid triggering Henley’s anxiety in the first place.

The chews get ⅘ stars on Chewy and 4.8/5 stars on Amazon, so seems like other people have had success with VetriScience Composure chews, as well.

Make sure you talk to your vet if you have any concerns about your pet ingesting anything new, if you have concerns!

Thanks for the guest post, Henley P.! 

Happy tails…