Is sedation the key to keeping pets calm?
Put a cat in a car or a dog on a plane, and get ready for the fur to fly. It can be a disaster to travel with an animal who is frightened by loud noises, has separation anxiety or suffers motion sickness. To ease the angst, many pet owners opt to give their animals sedative medications before road or air travel.
Under certain circumstances, veterinarians say sedation can be OK, but most agree should only be used under extreme circumstances, and people can find better ways to help pets relax.
The Dangers
One big danger with using sedatives, says veterinarian Dr. Rebecca Nealey, of Monroe Veterinary Associates in Pittsford, N.Y., is that you just don’t know exactly how they’ll work.
“The risks of sedation vary from animal to animal,” Nealey says. “We can’t always predict how an animal will react.”
Because of a number of environmental factors present during air travel, sedatives actually pose a fatality risk, she says. For one thing, animals housed in an airplane’s cargo area are unattended during the flight, so if the animal has a negative reaction, it will be alone.
In addition, most cargo carriers are not heated. Normally this isn’t a problem, but sedated animals are more likely to have trouble adjusting to a cool temperature. Sedatives can cause an animal’s blood pressure to drop, lowering its body temperature. This, combined with the colder air temperature, leaves animals at risk for hypothermia.
There is also little known about the side effects of sedation when animals travel at high altitudes with a change in air pressure. High altitudes have been known to increase the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular issues in pets, especially for short-snouted dogs and cats, such as pugs and Persian cats.
The American Veterinarian Association links sedation to about 50% of air transport animal deaths.
Find Alternatives
People traveling with pets by car, don’t have to worry about altitude or air pressure, but Nealey still recommends finding alternatives to sedation. She says healthy pets typically do not need to be sedated during travel at all. Even pets that are nervous about air travel often calm down when placed in a crate in a quiet, dark place.
The best thing to prepare, Nealey says, is your own attitude.
“Most animals adapt better to travel than their owners think they will,” she says. “People sometimes get more worried about the trip than their pet does, and those human anxieties can make the situation worse. The calmer the owner is when preparing the pet for a trip, the calmer the animal is likely to be.”
Nealey recommends testing various anxiety-reducing remedies before the trip, including natural and synthetic sprays, anxiety wraps and over-the-counter medication.
“Animals are like people. Some things are going to work and some won’t. Some animals will respond well to one thing and not to another,” she says. “There is no way to predict how they will respond without trying.”