Drugs used to modify behaviour in dogs and cats

Abstract

This work comprises an analysis of the use of drugs in veterinary practice for the modification of behaviours in pet dogs and cats. The use of medication is, in most cases, essential for the treatment of many behaviour problems. In the study presented above, in most of the cases in which the veterinarians did use psychoactive drugs to treat behaviour problems, it was a successful therapy. Nevertheless, there are a lot of veterinarians faced with an increasing number of behaviour problems that are not treating the problems with drugs. An explanation for the infrequent use of psychoactive medication may come from the fact that many veterinarians are not familiar with psychoactive drugs. Moreover, it may reflect the limited number of approved drugs available in Europe.