Okay...

My dog is a spayed female, around 4-5 years old, adopted from a shelter about 2.5 years ago.

She has always been "slightly worried" about storms but lately it's been getting somewhat worse. We've had thunderstorms almost daily for the past 2-3 weeks and it is predicted will have them every day from today until at least Sunday. (yes, my flowers are drowning!) The storms thankfully have been brief (1-2 hours) and full sun before and afterward.

The dog's symptoms are at first acting worried and clingy, she will seek me out and press on me, put her head on my lap or lay down on my feet, later she will pant and her eyes will be wide, and she will start to tremble and shake.

If the storm happens at night she will come into my bedroom and wake me up (even though she is not allowed in my bedroom). One time during a particularly bad storm with really LOUD thunder I did let her up into my bed, she was so frightened and just shook and shook and panted.

I have tried the following things
- ignoring her, I let her press against me and follow me but don't pet or acknowledge her
- try distracting her with obedience or games
- melatonin (my dog trainer swears by it, but it didn't help me)
- Relora
- Rescue remedy
- calmly stroking her slowly
- allowing her in my bed that one night

I am reluctant to crate her in case she panics

None of the above has had any effect, and now she is getting worse.

Questions. When the dog is acting fearful, what should *I* be doing? continue ignoring her? try and distract her? Any other tips you can give me? Products to try? What about if the storm in the middle of the night? Should I get up with her, let her come in my room, banish her from the room and close the door?

Luckily she is not destructive or harming herself in any way.

I would love to hear anecdotes from people who had a thunderstorm fearful dog and have managed to cure or significantly reduce the dog's fear. Or is that not a realistic goal?

Is she crate trained?

If she is normally comfortable and secure in her crate, I would try crating her, with a blanket over the crate to muffle the noise and create a den-like atmosphere. I would try to do this before a storms hits and when you are up and awake in case she does panic and starts to harm herself.

I've been around a dog who just freaked out during thunderstorms. He wasn't crated and it seemed his panic escalated the more he ran frantically around the house. Being loose seemed to make a bad situation much worse.

Likewise, you could try desensitizing her to the sound of thunder by playing a recording of thunder (either on a CD or something downloaded off the net) very softly, for very short periods of time to gradually get her used to it and to where she might be able to ignore it.

Poor baby...being frightened like that is no fun.

The crate has worked for me.
If she does not calm down eneough I have found that putting phoenix in the closet where it is dark works for thunder storms and fireworks.
Phoenix is a freak about storms we where at our old apartment.
She was young about 5 months well a boilt of lighting hit the ground about 3 footballs fields away.
In plain site and she and her bother freaked. Ran under the house in the back it took us 7 hours to get them out.
Now I have to crate her hours befor or she freaks out real bad.
I have another crate in the closet she will now go in there when she freaks out.

Colorado had daily lightning from May- July it seemed.

The solution we had for our foster dog who was chronically fearful and my brother's rottie was a crate in the living room. We generally put the dogs in about 1 pm when the lightning usually began along with a long term chewey of some sort. Like a cow ear, pig snoot, kong full of stuff, or hoof. Then we'd start to play videogames or handhelds and ignore the dog... ignore the lightning... replace the chewey if they managed to kill it before the storm was over.

It's important to give their mind something to do to ignore the lightning, air pressure changes, and thunder. It's also important that you don't respond to the lightning or the dog because both will feed into the panic.

I'm in the middle of this battle again, since we are in the thunderstorm season. My 13 year old only started with thunderstorm phobia when whe was around 9 or 10. As a young dog, we exercised on the training areas of ft lewis with lots of automatic weapons fire and artillery fire (distant),and it never bothered her. She had a spinal injury, so this is what thunderstorms do to her:
she starts pacing and panting
she poops on the floor, it seem more like fecal incontinence since she does not seem to be able to control it.
she shakes and paces nonstop.
Crating means she tries despirately to get out of the crate (she is crate trained, but just not during thunderstorms) and poops in the crate.
I got a "storm defender" cape- does not work for her. melatonin- doesn't work. Valium or Acepromazine- she already has neurological deficits from the spinal injury, so anything that interferes with her balance makes her panic and she falls all over the place. Loud tv, doesn't help. We have a home theater and the booming doesn't bother her.
Right now I'm trying a desensitization CD from "master's voice", it has another CD of calming music that can be played all the time ("kennel calm"). Were up to track 6. So far so good, but of course we are having thunderstorms as well, so can't really tell if it's working. What does help a little is xanax. I'm hoping that the xanax along with the desensitization will help this old dog. I can still tell if it's thundered during the day because I'll have to clean the floor when I get home.
vickie

I had a dog about 20 years ago that was fine with storms, and one day he just started freaking out. It turned out the neighbor kid started routinely shooting him with a pellet gun. Ever since that he was afraid of any thunder or cracking noise.

This happens more often than you would think. Do you think you have a neighbor that might be shooting at her?

Hello all. Just wanted to give an update.

My dog is now much WORSE. A lot of people suggested crating her but that only seems to increase her panic. She is now at the point of destroying things and attempting to escape.

Melatonin does NOT work. Relora helps during mild storms, but does not eliminate her fear.

I gave her a Relora today before leaving for work, knowing there would be a storm. An hour later I got a call from my friend who had been walking one of my dogs. He said there were four loud thunderclaps while he was driving back to my house. My two other males were panting and scared (they are not usually frightened of storms) and my female had destroyed the inside of her crate (dog bed, water pail) and was extremely agitated. (Her crate used to be covered, but she destroyed the cover in a previous anxiety attack).

I am concerned she will injure herself, plus it must be awful for her to be so scared.

We get thunderstorms about weekly so if anyone has any more tips or better yet, has successfully helped their dog get over storms, I'd love to hear it.

In the O.P. you said that she was not usually crated. I think that putting her in the crate before she comes to know it as a safe haven might be the issue.

Have you ever crate trained a dog before?

As I have always crate trained my dogs as puppies, I will someone else chime in with some pointers for crate training an older dog.

Also, I have NEVER had a dog fearful of thunderstorms. Well I might have but I couldn't tell because they always felt safe in their crates, so they showed no outward signs of being in distress.

Niomi, she is crate trained and sleeps in her crate every night. She alternates nights she is out and when it is her turn to be out she sleeps in there anyway. It is her bed. She is a very well behaved dog and has earned the right to be free in the house. I realize I didn't state that in my OP.

I have had her 3 1/2 years and I've crated her since day 1. She did NOT have a fear of thunderstorms when I first adopted her.

I also have three other dogs that are crate trained. I do rescue, so I know the importance of crate training. So, I understand your suggestion, but that's not it.

When there is a storm she CANNOT be unattended. She has to be stuck to someone like glue. Try and crate her (even if I am sitting right beside her crate) and she basically has a panic attack. At all other times she loves her crate. If given a choice (door open) she will not go in her crate during a storm.

She's had two Relora already today and (we're just having another storm now) is stuck to my dogsitter (I'm at work). The worst part is that my other dogs, who weren't thunderphobic, are starting to pick it up from her. (And two are fosters who I'm trying to get adopted, so this isn't good!)

I'm thinking T-Touch or some other kind of behavioural therapy. Anyone know anything about this?

Here is a link:

http://www.ttouch.com/

You may be able to find someone in your area that does TT. Or, if there is a training session close by you can go learn to do it yourself!