Storm Phobica

[Santo66]

My young BC boy is not at all fazed by noises & the loudest thunder storm...he will just sleep through the lot, thanks to the work his breeder put into her puppies when they were little. But my older BC girl is completely different. The thunder shirt does nothing for her, probably because I think, that instead of being frightened by the storm, she trys to fight it. Best thing for her is to put her in her crate, covered except for the front. She soon settles & goes to sleep :)

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

[toshman]

My young BC boy is not at all fazed by noises & the loudest thunder storm...he will just sleep through the lot, thanks to the work his breeder put into her puppies when they were little. But my older BC girl is completely different. The thunder shirt does nothing for her, probably because I think, that instead of being frightened by the storm, she trys to fight it. Best thing for her is to put her in her crate, covered except for the front. She soon settles & goes to sleep :)

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

But is that always the case? My girl has not been phobic all her life - early on she was pretty laid back about them and didn't seem to worry at all, but now she's hopeless. And my daughter's Staffie grew up absolutely bomb-proof and actually loving loud noises (he was the party pooper who always tried to pop every balloon at a party :laugh: ) and not being phased at all by storms, but in later life he became absolutely hysterical over storms and fireworks etc. - to the point where he once smashed a reinforced glass shower screen in the laundry in his hysteria.

[New Age Outlaw]

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

Good point! Anxiety is most often inherited, which means that it may only respond to training & and other external methods to a point (depending on how badly it manifests). I have never had a storm phobic dog until recently - one of my old girls, Freckles, is very scared of thunder and prolonged loud noises (eg fireworks). She will just lie on her bed and shiver uncontrollably, completely miserable; she won't get off her bed, even to eat (and she is usually such a food hog!). I find that Valium works well for her. The wierd thing is that Ziggy, who is usually frightened of anything else, sleeps through storms. Dogs...who can figure them?

Edited November 30, 2012 by New Age Outlaw

[Santo66]

My young BC boy is not at all fazed by noises & the loudest thunder storm...he will just sleep through the lot, thanks to the work his breeder put into her puppies when they were little. But my older BC girl is completely different. The thunder shirt does nothing for her, probably because I think, that instead of being frightened by the storm, she trys to fight it. Best thing for her is to put her in her crate, covered except for the front. She soon settles & goes to sleep :)

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

But is that always the case? My girl has not been phobic all her life - early on she was pretty laid back about them and didn't seem to worry at all, but now she's hopeless. And my daughter's Staffie grew up absolutely bomb-proof and actually loving loud noises (he was the party pooper who always tried to pop every balloon at a party :laugh: ) and not being phased at all by storms, but in later life he became absolutely hysterical over storms and fireworks etc. - to the point where he once smashed a reinforced glass shower screen in the laundry in his hysteria.

Yes absolutely a genetic nerve weakness especially as noise doesn't physically cause the dog harm. It can surface in later life as you explained, but any forms of hysteria through non direct physical contact like fireworks, storms, gunfire etc is a genetic nerve imbalance in the breeding. Nerve is also the major contributing factor of a dog's recovery to physical distress.....dog falls off the seat of the car and then won't get back in and becomes fearful of the car in general and forcing the dog can turn into hysteria or even aggression, where a dog with strong nerve will adjust their footing so they don't fall off the seat again, they jump back on the horse so to speak unphased with the clarity of mind to understand what went wrong.

[Santo66]

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

Good point! Anxiety is most often inherited, which means that it may only respond to training & and other external methods to a point (depending on how badly it manifests). I have never had a storm phobic dog until recently - one of my old girls, Freckles, is very scared of thunder and prolonged loud noises (eg fireworks). She will just lie on her bed and shiver uncontrollably, completely miserable; she won't get off her bed, even to eat (and she is usually such a food hog!). I find that Valium works well for her. The wierd thing is that Ziggy, who is usually frightened of anything else, sleeps through storms. Dogs...who can figure them?

I too have had a terribly storm phobic dog who would shiver and shake trying to hide under the table to the point he would often vomit if the storm continued on for too long, it's an awful infliction for the poor dog and equally hard for the owners to manage the symptoms if they are severe. Something I learned from guide dog breeders and trainers in regard to the genetic structure of phobias where we can relate to the consequence of guide dogs going into fits of hysteria in storms an becoming unworkable for their sight impaired owners and genetics of the breeding is the number one factor they use in counting phobic possibility.

[smooch]

I have just altered a pair of human ear muffs, tied them together with hay rope, added more padding to the ear pieces and hopefully if the forecast storms do come around this afternoon it will help, with the thundershirt and rescue remedy.

[darlingdog]

Xanax given EARLY and then repeat every 4 hours if needed. Thundershirt as well.Most terrified dogs wont eat a thing even if you offer steak ! Try to work out where your dog wants to be..it might be a crate, or a cupboard or under the table...in my case my dog wants to be in the very deep laundry shelf which is up off the floor. So we carpeted the shelf so she doesnt slip and put a curtain across the front. When the storm starts I put a collar and lead on and take her there, indicate the shelf and then ignore her. She eventually makes her own decision to go on the shelf. The first few times this took up to 20 mins. Now she is likely to go there herself and is starting to stay there. She displays bad digging behaviour when we have storms..she is allowed to dig on the carpeted shelf but not anywhere else..anywhere else she is corrected with my voice 'uh uh'. Each time she gets off I just go and put lead and collar on her again and repeat the exercise. I find she is staying there on her own accord longer and longer.I am doing all this after consulting with a behaviourist and it's working. Takes time but worth it. The drugs are not optional in my opinion....terrified dogs and we have the drugs to help out..its a no brainer for me.I do not comfort her nor do I get tough with her, she cannot help her behaviour. I am trying to show her a 'safe' place to be and so far it's helping enormously. I also have 2 others who are scared too but not to the degree of my rescue bitch who takes it to a whole other level LOL!!!

Hope my long winded story has some tips that others can use that might help.

[mita]

Friends' usually laid-back Amstaff girl, goes into terror mode at first sign of storms. They've tried everything. But vet recently suggested the Thundershirt.

They bought one but were very, very sceptical. Just thought it might be a useless gimmick to extract money from desperate owners. To their utter amazement... it worked with their girl! And it's first test was a beauty... it was that dreadful recent Brisbane storm which was famous for the number and ferocity of the thunder and lightning strikes. Even one of my non-storm- phobic dogs got a little antzy during that one. But Amstaff girl was fine. Friends are trying to figure why it works!

Lily, tibbie next door, is seriously storm-phobic. She picks up signals that a storm is coming very early... and she keeps barking a warning. Her 'dad' says she's saying, 'We're all going to die!' But, oddly, she's a great storm forecaster...when Lily does that, we know our area will get hit by a storm.

[Tibbie_tabbie]

If the dog will take treats, a counter-conditioning program may be helpful. I use a kind of bar open/bar closed approach. The moment the thunder roll starts I start shovelling food into the little E's mouth. When it stops, food stops. I use that because lots of food gets Erik excited. It helps for him to associate it strongly with something or he just gets over-aroused. Moreso. We have now graduated to down-stays. It is a bit of an art form adjusting the reward rate. Erik runs around barking as well. I don't let him. The more he runs around the more aroused he gets and the more reactive he gets. Down-stays are the opposite. If he's doing well, I can start rewarding for a quiet down while the thunder is rolling. He gets the treat if he was quiet and still until it ends. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Yesterday we had rolling thunder for over an hour. After about the first 20 minutes Erik literally wandered off and took care of himself. It was incredible. Erik is sensitive to any deep or sharp, loud sounds. We are making a lot of progress with counter-conditioning. It's very effective with most sounds, but takes persistence. Storms and fireworks are harder because they tend to provoke extreme reactions and the dogs get overloaded. Recordings of thunder may help, played at low volume at first and then increasing it, but it might not. I've heard that for the best shot one should try to get the sound from the CD coming from outside with speakers to best imitate a storm. E gets very aroused by storms, but he is always up for treats. My other dog has recently apparently learnt to be afraid of storms. His fear is different and he won't take treats. Just wants to sit close and shake. I let him press against me. It seems to help him. My previous dog was storm phobic all her life and I never did manage to combat it. She would shake, pant, and not eat. It seemed the best we could do was just let her find somewhere she felt safest and make sure she had access to it.

This.

Through this my two don't care about storms at all and will even go in and out. We have slept in a tent when a thunderstorm hit and the most my JRT did was complain and roll over.

We had fireworks very close to us last night for the first time. Like I did with storms (and everything else - my JRT was reactive) I got the chicken/liver (i.e., fresh, soft, high reward treats) out and started off just feeding them, then when fully focussed on my they had to start working for the treats.

I understand with very storm phobic it may take a long time to get to this stage, but my humble advice is try it all - thunder shirt, DAP (or similar), food. When I first got my Jack this is the only way she could even leave the house - took longer to get her ready than her walks ; P

[HazyWal]

I have just altered a pair of human ear muffs, tied them together with hay rope, added more padding to the ear pieces and hopefully if the forecast storms do come around this afternoon it will help, with the thundershirt and rescue remedy.

Hope it works

[RiverStar-Aura]

I don't know if any of you storm phobic dogs are aware but there's a new type of Thunder Shirt available -- I saw them in my local Pet Barn. It's a hood that covers the dog's eyes and ears -- don't know how effective this would be either.

I have sympathies for all of you and am glad my two don't mind stormy weather. They both just hunker down and sleep it off. None of our dogs have been storm phobic but have lived outside all the time since puppyhood. I wonder if being inside dogs can be linked to the phobia?

My Kirah doesn't like storms, but she doesn't get terrified by them either.

Hugs and thoughts over the next few days for you guys and your dogs!

[smooch]

I don't know if any of you storm phobic dogs are aware but there's a new type of Thunder Shirt available -- I saw them in my local Pet Barn. It's a hood that covers the dog's eyes and ears -- don't know how effective this would be either.

If its these... http://www.thundershirt.com/Product/ProductDetails.aspx?item_guid=8c07f7d3-f09d-4e95-a82e-0ac16d129a20 I would be concerned if things went wrong and the dogs couldn't see what might happen to them, think you would have to have the dog confined.

I never go anywhere when there are storms around, just not worth the risk of Smooch getting hurt. He does forget that he is partially disabled.

[sheena]

My young BC boy is not at all fazed by noises & the loudest thunder storm...he will just sleep through the lot, thanks to the work his breeder put into her puppies when they were little. But my older BC girl is completely different. The thunder shirt does nothing for her, probably because I think, that instead of being frightened by the storm, she trys to fight it. Best thing for her is to put her in her crate, covered except for the front. She soon settles & goes to sleep :)

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

She also played the pups one of those "sound" CD's...so I think they were all pretty much desentisized to all sorts of loud & disturbing noises

[kayla1]

Two of my dogs have a fear of storms.

Kayla paces, pants etc and previously wouldn't accept food. She reacts to the atmospheric changes, not just the noise, so she sometimes gets anxious when there is no storm in sight. I have tried many things with her - CDs, DAP, rescue remedy etc - and nothing much seemed to work. The best thing is to let her find her own safe place (eg in the shower)and leave her be. She hasn't been as bad the past couple of years since Coco arrived, so perhaps his presence has helped (he is not bothered too much by storms). The other thing is that her hearing is not as good as it was, so she sometimes doesn't notice things that she would have previously.

With Annie, it seems to be just the noise itself that frightens her. She reacts differently too, and just wants to be as close as possible to me. So with the storms last night, she alternated between trying to lay on my head and trying to get as far down under the doona as she could. I just stroke her calmly and let her go where she wants to go.

I will also stay home with them if I know a storm is coming.

[mantis]

Two of my dogs have a fear of storms.

Kayla paces, pants etc and previously wouldn't accept food. She reacts to the atmospheric changes, not just the noise, so she sometimes gets anxious when there is no storm in sight. I have tried many things with her - CDs, DAP, rescue remedy etc - and nothing much seemed to work. The best thing is to let her find her own safe place (eg in the shower)and leave her be. She hasn't been as bad the past couple of years since Coco arrived, so perhaps his presence has helped (he is not bothered too much by storms). The other thing is that her hearing is not as good as it was, so she sometimes doesn't notice things that she would have previously.

With Annie, it seems to be just the noise itself that frightens her. She reacts differently too, and just wants to be as close as possible to me. So with the storms last night, she alternated between trying to lay on my head and trying to get as far down under the doona as she could. I just stroke her calmly and let her go where she wants to go.

I will also stay home with them if I know a storm is coming.

As I posted earlier, dogs can smell when a storm is coming, I can't remember what the smell is, maybe someone else knows. But Kenny knew well in advance of the thunder & lightning hitting.

[mantis]

Two of my dogs have a fear of storms.

Kayla paces, pants etc and previously wouldn't accept food. She reacts to the atmospheric changes, not just the noise, so she sometimes gets anxious when there is no storm in sight. I have tried many things with her - CDs, DAP, rescue remedy etc - and nothing much seemed to work. The best thing is to let her find her own safe place (eg in the shower)and leave her be. She hasn't been as bad the past couple of years since Coco arrived, so perhaps his presence has helped (he is not bothered too much by storms). The other thing is that her hearing is not as good as it was, so she sometimes doesn't notice things that she would have previously.

With Annie, it seems to be just the noise itself that frightens her. She reacts differently too, and just wants to be as close as possible to me. So with the storms last night, she alternated between trying to lay on my head and trying to get as far down under the doona as she could. I just stroke her calmly and let her go where she wants to go.

I will also stay home with them if I know a storm is coming.

As I posted earlier, dogs can smell when a storm is coming, I can't remember what the smell is, maybe someone else knows. But Kenny knew well in advance of the thunder & lightning hitting.

[kayla1]

Two of my dogs have a fear of storms.

Kayla paces, pants etc and previously wouldn't accept food. She reacts to the atmospheric changes, not just the noise, so she sometimes gets anxious when there is no storm in sight. I have tried many things with her - CDs, DAP, rescue remedy etc - and nothing much seemed to work. The best thing is to let her find her own safe place (eg in the shower)and leave her be. She hasn't been as bad the past couple of years since Coco arrived, so perhaps his presence has helped (he is not bothered too much by storms). The other thing is that her hearing is not as good as it was, so she sometimes doesn't notice things that she would have previously.

With Annie, it seems to be just the noise itself that frightens her. She reacts differently too, and just wants to be as close as possible to me. So with the storms last night, she alternated between trying to lay on my head and trying to get as far down under the doona as she could. I just stroke her calmly and let her go where she wants to go.

I will also stay home with them if I know a storm is coming.

As I posted earlier, dogs can smell when a storm is coming, I can't remember what the smell is, maybe someone else knows. But Kenny knew well in advance of the thunder & lightning hitting.

I remember reading it was something to do with sensing changes in the atmosphere, air pressure and so on.

[dancinbcs]

My young BC boy is not at all fazed by noises & the loudest thunder storm...he will just sleep through the lot, thanks to the work his breeder put into her puppies when they were little. But my older BC girl is completely different. The thunder shirt does nothing for her, probably because I think, that instead of being frightened by the storm, she trys to fight it. Best thing for her is to put her in her crate, covered except for the front. She soon settles & goes to sleep :)

The breeder did a good job selecting breeding pairs with sound nerve. Storm phobias and fearful behaviour like this is genetic........such a shame to see so many dogs suffer at the hands of breeders who dismiss phobia as a genetic flaw.

She also played the pups one of those "sound" CD's...so I think they were all pretty much desentisized to all sorts of loud & disturbing noises

I believe genetics is the major problem. I have never owned or bred a storm phobic dog and I don't play noise tapes to them. I just will not breed from anything that is noise phobic before the age of at least 10. Some old dogs do seem to react differently as they age and I think this could be due to hearing loss making the noise sound different. Truly storm phobic dogs react to the drop in atmospheric pressure, long before the storm hits. Some neighbours we had years ago, had a 20 year old cattle dog who spent a lot of time on our front verandah. We never let her in our house but the previous home owners did. She was happy to stay on the verandah unless there was a storm coming when she would dart in the door as soon as it was open and scoot under the bed in the master bedroom. This could be 2 hours before the storm hit and she was always right in predicting a storm.

[RiverStar-Aura]

I don't know if any of you storm phobic dogs are aware but there's a new type of Thunder Shirt available -- I saw them in my local Pet Barn. It's a hood that covers the dog's eyes and ears -- don't know how effective this would be either.

If its these... http://www.thundershirt.com/Product/ProductDetails.aspx?item_guid=8c07f7d3-f09d-4e95-a82e-0ac16d129a20 I would be concerned if things went wrong and the dogs couldn't see what might happen to them, think you would have to have the dog confined.

It's funny you mentioned this because that's exactly what my first thoughts on them were and still are. If the dog is scared, the last thing I'd want to do would be cover their eyes.

I think the cat Thunder Shirts are cute though! ^_^

[corvus]

I just will not breed from anything that is noise phobic before the age of at least 10.

So, you don't breed from any dogs younger than 10? Ten years??

There is some indication that sound sensitivity may be inherited, but it's not as simple as that. A lot of what we might consider genetic traits are more like genetic potentials. What is actually expressed at the end of the day is likely to depend not just on the dog's genetics, but the environment they grew up in, the current environment, stressors they may have been under at times in their development, and of course learning. Maybe even nutrition and what state the dam was in when she was pregnant. My older dog is 4 1/2. He showed his first indication of thunderstorm fear just about a month ago. There's no way that is purely genetic. I am 90% confident he learnt it. And I imagine he learnt it partly because of his temperament and partly because of the relationship he has with other members of our family.

I think we have to be very careful here. I imagine that there are fewer selection pressures on dogs these days for things like trait anxiety than there once was. This is good in a way because we are better equipped to help dogs that are a bit different, but bad in that because we can manage them and are more compassionate towards them we don't select so strongly against them. Writing dogs with problems however minor off as having 'weak nerve' is grossly over simplistic and it isn't fair to the dogs. Maybe they are more prone to things like sound sensitivity than other dogs, but we are also capable of managing them so that this is less of a big deal than it might have been many years ago. In some cases we can even 'cure' them. It is not helpful to the dog to label it as having weak nerve and saying "See, this is why it behaves this way." A) that is not necessarily why they behave that way and B) So what? You owe it to the dog in front of you to do what you can to help them. Putting it all down to genes is a good way to absolve yourself of the responsibility of trying to help them and avoiding the opportunity to examine and possibly improve the way you manage and train dogs.