Discussion: How Does Your Dog Deal With Thunder and Lightning?

Harley HATES storms! The only way to keep her calm is to let her sit in your lap and rub the top of her head. I have tried other ways to keep her calm but nothing works. She is lucky she is small!

Odie is usually ok unless it's really bad, then he wants to be held and snuggled.

BSCOTTY! Is that your Odie in your profile picture? :)

Thankfully, my 2 just want to be with you, they don't freak out they just like to be in the same room with you.

Here's what I've done....  My 1st Rottie, Kita  hated thunderstorms. She would hide in the tub and shake so bad.

She was very smart though, like her owner lol, and we had a fish tank and loved to watch the fish. We would say to her 'you see the fishies" and she would sit in front of the tank and just watch them swim around.

Well one day it occurred to me to try word association when a thunderstorm came on through. As the thunder would boom, I would say do you hear the fishies and she just started to watch the fish tank as the thunder went on. This wasn't an immanent transformation but storm after storm she stopped shaking and hiding and seemed to be at ease with the thunder. Sometimes the close ones would get her upset but with a "do you hear the fishies' her attention would go straight to the fish tank and I would repeat it until the thunder subsided. It worked well for our other girl Sara too (a Husky).

When Kita and Sara passed on, we of course got another rescue pup and she too was afraid of the thunder. But the fish tank was not an interesting thing to Shelby. Squirrels were more her fancy! So I tried the word association game with her. Whenever Shelby would chase after and bark at squirrels I would unsuccessfully try to calm her behavior  by using the 'bad girl, leave the squirrels alone' statement. Of course she would and still does to this day, chases them and barks at them but when thunderstorms would roll through I would say to her... 'do you hear the squirrels' and she would run around 'looking' for the squirrels. I have 4 dogs now...  Shelby a Rottie Shep mix Tia a Shep Rottie mix, Nikki a Lab mix , and Lilly a Chihuahua.

We no longer have the fish tank but we do have squirrels by the dozen! All of my dogs are oblivious to thunder! The 'do you hear the squirrels' association has worked with them all. Not one has anxiety issues with thunder. They all seem to be as calm as can be whenever a thunder storm rolls through.

We have moved down south and guns are common and fireworks are a norm around here too. Since we've moved, I've used the squirrel mantra towards gun fire and fireworks and they have stopped the shaking and now bark at them.  It did seem to work faster for the pups than the adults Kita & Sara, but I would suggest to those that have thunder, gunfire, firework anxiety issues to give the word association game a try.

Use a word that your dog knows and is associated with attention diversion. 'Is that the mailman'... 'Is that the cat'... '' do you hear the xxxxxx' and when a thunderstorm comes on through, just keep repeating the phrase. It might take some time but I no longer have to say my 'catch phrase' to my kids and it really didn't take too many storms to get them to start changing their behavior.

I would love to hear if this works for anyone else!

Good luck!

Joe

Our terrier mix does not cope well with Tstorms and fireworks. She will just about sit on top of you while either is going on. She just wants to be very close so she feels secure. Our morkie is not affected by Tstorms or fireworks.

My two current dogs don't mind so much, but I had a shih tzu that used to shake badly and either hid some place or you had to hold her