Veterinary-visit anxiety in dogs: gabapentin vs trazodone before the visit — MAYBE (weak evidence)

STAMP: MAYBE (weak evidence): No eligible record exists for this shelf, and this pack is honestly empty (no cards). PubMed searches run at drafting (gabapentin and trazodone combinations with veterinary visit, pre-appointment/preappointment, fear, anxiety and veterinary examination in dogs, Nov 10, 2026) found NO study that compares gabapentin with trazodone, given before a veterinary visit, in dogs with veterinary-visit anxiety — so there is no head-to-head evidence on which drug reduces fear scores or eases handling more at the visit. Near-misses, documented here and deliberately not carded: (1) Landsberg 2026 (PMID: 42441254) IS a blinded, placebo-controlled head-to-head of the same two drugs — 36 laboratory Beagles, 12 per group, given trazodone 10 mg/kg, gabapentin 30 mg/kg or placebo 2 hours before testing — but the setting is a road-travel model of travel-induced anxiety, not a veterinary visit: trazodone significantly reduced serum cortisol, lip licking frequency and scores, global anxiety scores, urination, yawning and restlessness, while no differences were observed following gabapentin relative to control on any physiological or behavioural measure. A travel test involves no veterinary examination or handling, so importing it would answer a different question, and it is not carded here. (2) Stollar 2022 (PMID: 35358063), a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study in 22 healthy client-owned dogs, gave a single 50 mg/kg oral dose of gabapentin or placebo 2 hours before a veterinary visit: lip licking frequency was significantly lower with gabapentin during the physical examination phase (P = 0.001) and in the pre- and post-examination phases (P = 0.004), but greeting test score, eye surface temperature and cortisol concentrations did not differ substantially between groups — a gabapentin-vs-placebo question, with no trazodone arm. (3) Kim 2022 (PMID: 35333743), a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial in 20 dogs with a history of anxiety during veterinary visits, gave trazodone 9 to 12 mg/kg or placebo 90 minutes before transport: dogs on trazodone had lower mean owner-assessed stress scores for physical examination and lower video-analysis scores for time in the examination room than on placebo, with no meaningful differences in other behavioural or physiologic outcomes including serum cortisol — again a single-drug-vs-placebo question, with no gabapentin arm. (4) Costa 2023 (PMID: 37495226) studied a COMBINATION protocol (gabapentin plus melatonin plus oral-transmucosal acepromazine) before hospital visits in 45 anxious or aggressive dogs, with stress scores lower after the protocol than at baseline (21.84 vs 27.11) — a three-drug combination with no trazodone arm and no concurrent control, so it cannot separate gabapentin's effect, let alone compare it with trazodone. (5) Erickson 2021 (PMID: 34475580) is a narrative review of pre-appointment medications in dogs and cats, not a trial. Records for the same drug pair in other settings were likewise excluded per this topic's boundary: no echocardiography-sedation head-to-head record for the pair was returned by the searches run, and none would be carded as pre-visit-anxiety evidence in any case (topic #384, echocardiography sedation, is a separate, unbuilt question); an electroretinography record for the pair (PMID: 35895792) is about retinal responses, not anxiety. Design class (c): randomisation is not established, because no eligible record exists at all. One-home cross-points: gabapentin before veterinary visits in CATS is shelf #304's home (a different species, not re-carded here and never imported as canine evidence); other canine anxiety interventions home on shelves #669 (alpha-casozepine) and #670 (dog-appeasing pheromone) and are not re-carded. Until a head-to-head pre-visit trial is published, choosing between gabapentin and trazodone for a dog's veterinary visit rests on the separate placebo-controlled evidence for each drug described above, on dose, timing and the individual dog — not on comparative evidence carded here. Tier C is not engaged (no mortality/survival claim). Drafted Nov 10, 2026 (VetMed build, topic #463); all figures from the abstracts fetched and verified at drafting.