LSD May Help With Separation Anxiety in Dogs, New Study Says

An estimated 14 to 20 percent of dogs experience anxiety, and any parent of an anxious dog knows how challenging that experience can be. From separation anxiety to panic attacks, it’s so hard to watch our pup friends suffer and feel helpless to intervene. While anxiety meds are available, many parents find their pets still struggle – whether that’s with side effects from medication or decreased efficacy after a certain period of time. 

Recently, researchers from the Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria decided to look into alternative ways to treat canine anxiety. Specifically, they experimented with lysergic acid diethylamide, aka LSD. Yes, you read that right. Stick with us.

The study

In this study, which was published in September in the journal Veterinary Research Communications, a single, low dose of LSD was given to one 13-year-old mixed-breed dog who had a history of “separation related behavioral problems.” The dog, who was observed for five and a half hours, was anxious during the first two hours after the LSD was administered but then experienced a “significant change” with no to mild signs of anxiety. The dog didn’t show any sign of having a psychedelic experience, according to the researchers, nor did they notice any adverse effects. 

Before parents of anxious pets get too excited, though, Dr. Lindsey Wendt, founder of Crystal Lotus Veterinary Care, offers some caution. Although she tells Kinship “this is a very promising study,” a few elements limit the widespread applicability of these findings. For one, the sample size was very small. “Just being one dog, we can’t take this [study’s results] and assume to even begin to understand how a population of dogs would react” to LSD, Dr. Wendt says. 

What’s more, Dr. Wendt adds, “the duration of the effect was also very short, so there would also need to be much more exploration around what sort of administration frequency would be best.” For example, does LSD work best for situational anxiety and can be dosed on an ad hoc basis, or can it also work for chronic anxiety and potentially be given to anxious dogs daily? 

The results of this study may also be questionable because researchers “should not rely on subjective evaluation of the dog’s behavior,” per Dr. Wendt. Researchers measured common signs of stress, such as barking, salivation, and compulsive behaviors (ie., causing themself injury or destroying objects in the home).

But a more objective form of evaluation, such as “salivary cortisol, or the stress hormone levels,” may have strengthened the study’s results, Dr. Wendt says. “We don’t really know how this is working within them — we don’t know the biochemical pathways that are affected, and so it also makes it hard to understand what sort of long-term side effects there might be or what kind of contraindications with other medications or supplements” there might be, she adds.

That said, Dr. Wendt is still excited about the prospects of this study. “I love the idea of not relying on pharmaceutical agents we know have negative side effects, and that’s what most conventional veterinarians are using right now for anxiety management,” she adds. 

Karishma Warr, head of behavior at Calm Canine Academy, is also optimistic about the potential of non-pharmaceutical interventions but cautions that before pet parents try to treat anxious dogs, they should make sure they’re properly diagnosed.

Diagnosing your anxious dog 

Warr has worked with pet parents who believe their dog has separation anxiety, but after further examination, Warr sometimes discovers something different. 

“People misdiagnose phobias often,” Warr tells Kinship. For example, clients have come to her with dogs who may bark or howl for 10 to 20 minutes after their parents leave but do eventually calm down; behavior that can definitely be improved but is not a phobia. 

Diagnosing a true phobia can be difficult and comes down to very good body language reading, Warr says. Often, a dog may be upset that their parents leave, and may howl and bark, but their body is “not tense” and their face “relaxed, [without] a grimace or any facial tension.” Panic, on the other hand, often involves tension or even sitting still and shaking. 

“Those nuances are important, and [anxiety] can be misdiagnosed,” Warr says.

Dogs who are not experiencing phobias may still benefit from behavioral interventions, such as Calm Canine Academy’s four-step framework in which “desensitization and learning sits atop a holistic foundation.” 

Dogs who are experiencing anxiety may benefit from meds, but that alone also will likely not do it; behavioral training and meds should go hand in hand. “I very rarely see just medications being the solution, but I also very rarely see just behavioral therapy being the solution in genuine cases of phobia,” Warr says. “They work together.” 

Alternative treatments

However, medical interventions can extend beyond pharmaceuticals. Both Warr and Dr. Wendt are open to alternatives, such as CBD, which both say they have seen anxious clients thrive on. Pet parents should just be sure to research the products they use, only selecting products made specifically for pets and which come with a certificate of analysis; Dr. Wendt recommends checking out the Veterinary Cannabis Society for more resources.

Dr. Wendt also focuses on an integrative, holistic approach to treating her patients. “I treat them as an individual with a condition or imbalance; I don’t treat them as a condition,” she says. In the case of anxiety, this means trying to find out what is causing a pet’s anxiety rather than treating their anxious symptoms. “If we do not address the underlying imbalances that they have, we will constantly be chasing the symptoms forever,” Dr. Wendt says.

Some of those common underlying imbalances include considering the role gut health can play in behavioral health and using peptides as part of a regenerative medicine type protocol. For example, Dr. Wendt is experimenting with oxytocin, which is “a hormone and a neural peptide but it really has a crucial role in social bonding and stress reduction,” and doesn’t have negative side effects.

Chinese medicine is another holistic approach Dr. Wendt (and a number of veterinarians) uses to treat anxiety. In that practice, “anxiety is often caused by either excessive heat or imbalance in one of the organ systems, usually the heart, the liver, or the spleen, and the spleen in Chinese medicine is responsible for digestion,” so Dr. Wendt often uses “ food therapy, acupuncture, and herbs to reduce anxiety and I’ll often combine any and all of these methods I just mentioned with behavioral modification.”

Of course, more traditional medications prescribed for anxiety can still be helpful. However, pet parents should carefully consider their side effects. For example, fluoxetine, also known as Prozac, is one of the most common drugs Dr. Wendt sees veterinarians prescribe anxious pets, but she says there are side effects to consider.

“Prozac is changing the way that our pets’ bodies process serotonin or interact with serotonin,” which is produced in the gut, Dr. Wendt says. “We think of it as we’re just managing anxiety, but it does have global effects,” including gastrointestinal upset and even changes in personality. Prozac “dampens things down a little bit,” which may help certain behaviors but can affect your pet overall. 

Ultimately, though, any pet parent who is concerned about their dog’s behavior should seek help. “I’m very passionate about debunking the idea that we need to wait for things to get really bad before we move to meds,” Warr says. “I also think we need to debunk the idea that we need to try everything else before we move to meds.” (As always, please speak to your vet and other trusted professionals in dog’s life about what they think is best for your pup.)

No matter what form those meds take — whether conventional, alternative, or maybe one day, after some more research, LSD, Dr. Wendt says they’re worth considering. She leaves us with a final thought: “We wouldn’t deny it for our kids, so we shouldn’t deny it for our dogs.”