Our 4 yr. old dog is terrified when it's thundering & lightning. How can we help him overcome his fears ?

Question

Our dog is a Hurricane Rita survivor who we adopted from the streets. He is an inside dog but is absolutely scared to death of storms. When he just smells rain coming, he starts walking low to the ground and begins shivering. He tries to hide his face or sits bowing his head way down looking so pitiful. We have tried to reassure him by talking softly to him. We have tried to be upbeat and try to get him to play with his toys to take his mind off it but he won't have any part of it. It must have been very traumatic to live thru a hurricane. Is there a chance he can pull out of this ? What can we do to help him ? Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

because your dog is reacting before it actually is thundering, it may be that the electricity in the air is making his fur feel weird.  Take a static dyer sheet and wipe him down with one or two and put on a tight fitting shirt or coat.  This helps to remove the static electricity and may help his anxiety.  

Answer 2

You can desensitise your dog with some effort and patience. Next time you have a storm, get a tape recording of it. You may also want to make another recording of your banging loud things around the house (make sure your poor dog isnt' around when you do this!).

Once you have your recording, play it softly a number of times each day at a very low, barely audible level. Keep your normal activities up as you would any other time. After a few days, turn up the volume a LITTLE. Continue to play it at random times during the day and evening, while continuing to live your life normally.

Here comes the hard part - if your dog shows any signs of anxiety DO NOT comfort him. I know that seems very harsh, but the more you "reward" him with attention when he's feeling anxious, the more ingrained this fear will become. Try to distract him instead by playing a game with him. If he doesn't want to take part, that's ok. Just go about your daily business and let him be.

Provided you don't move too quickly with the volume increases, even though your dog may show signs of anxiety, the lower volume will stop it from becoming an overwhelming experience for him. Slowly, he will realise that regardless of the noise, life goes on and nothing bad happens.

This is tricky because the dog has actually been traumatised - it's not just a random phobia, but you CAN certainly improve this with some effort. He may never be confident in a storm again, but if you can at least ease some of his fear, it will make life much easier for him.

Good luck!

Answer 3

Ask your vet.  There are products both Rx and holistic that you can give your pet.  He may never get over his fear, but you can help him get through these storms.

Answer 4

Give him sleeping pills before thundering and lighting are coming.

Answer 5

Your vet can prescribe a safe medication that will help during storms.

Answer 6

O my Gosh I know exactly how you feel!!! My Shetland sheepdog that i recently got for my birthday (early june), does the same thing! turns out his breeder left him outside in a storm without any shelter or protection! :(  What we do for him is whenever he starts shaking and drooling (he doesnt swallow i guess when he's nervous!!) lol We put a sheet over some chairs and have him lay under it with the tv on animal planet with medium-high volume, to try and distract him. If that doesnt work...we put him in his crate with the door open, and still talk to him. He has gotten better with it. Now I run with him outside just when its drizzleing so he can be happy (thats how far we've gotten!!!) Hope this helps for your pup!!! And god bless you for adopting a dog that was on the streets!!!!  

Answer 7

Get pieces of chicken... and every time there's thunder and lightning feed it to him, and tell him he's a good dog, so he knows that whenever thunder is around he gets treats! Hopefully after a while, he'll be excited with it comes. Just don't get anxious. Make sure you stay super calm so he feeds off of that. Hope this helps!

Answer 8

Well first off you should NEVER just give your dog any people pills, or sleeping pills as the other post suggests.  that is not safe and you could poison your dog.  My dog was fearful of storms when he was a puppy but he grew out of it.

What you can do is play with your dog while the storm is raging.  Play inside of course and don't let them know you are fearful, they can pick up on that.

There is a website that offers great APPROVED herbal supplements to help calm dogs and cats.  You may want to look into.  They are like treats to help calm them before an event or storm.  

Good luck, sometimes it just takes time and training to make them feel at ease.

www.drsfostersmith.com