[yorkietalkjilly]

Where possible, getting her busy by distracting her with training, chasing her ball or chasing her through the house - my Tibbe loves to grab hew chewie and have me chase him for it and pretend to try to get it from him and him always escape - anything like that that you can do in a regular rain storm when the thunder isn't so bad can help her with wanting to do this when there is a bad rainstorm and the thunder is loud. Some say to just ignore them but I find that hard to do if a dog is truly freaking out, running, panting, eye wide, ears back.

The experts tell us not to tell them "it's okay" or try to soothe them by "babying" them during times of loud thunder as it has the opposite effect of comforting them and merely reaffirms their feeling that feeling anxious or terrified is an acceptable behavior during a storm. Supposedly those that study animal behavior say feral dogs living in packs or dogs living on their own in the wild, don't normally get any nurturing or soothing from pack members during storms - just ignored and treated as any other dog if they are anxious and the anxious dog learns that anxiety is not an acceptable reaction to Mother Nature's storms as the other dogs are not freaking out and they try to conform in kind.

One thing that works for some dogs if the owner has a good stereo system is to play a thunderstorm CD at a low level a few times during the day for a few days as you play with and have fun times with the dog, gradually turning up the volume as the desensitization training progresses, it desensitizes some dogs to the sound of thunder. In time, the dog is able to tolerate the CD played fairly loud w/out any outward anxiety and when the dog reaches that level, playing that CD somewhat loud during a real thunderstorm can help reinforce to the dog to react with acceptance the same way he's learned to react when hearing this CD on a normal day.

Tibbe has been the only dog I've had that showed any level of anxiety during some thunderstorms but he was pretty ill with symptomatic MVD and IBS the first time he shoed fear after years of barking at or sleeping through thunderstorms. He was freaked by a lot of odd sounds during that time also. I tried distraction games and so forth with him but he was ill and not really up to chasing and playing at the time so I quickly stopped trying until he felt better. I finally bought and used a Thundershirt on him with great results and for the most part, the moment he gets it on and comes to lie near me, he goes off to sleep.

Now that he's on treatment for MVD and doing well, he's back to barking at thunderstorms with the occasional bout of very mild anxiety which the thundershirt quickly stops if I use it but it stops w/out it also just by my hand-playing with him by trying to pretend I'm going to get his feet or poke at his sides and he plays like he's biting back and usually gets involved in all that fun and doesn't any longer react to the loud thunder claps. I also hide treats around the den which he seeks out and finds - a game he loves playing anytime, especially during storms now.

I hope you find a way to help your little dog come to accept storms without fear. They say if we can stay very calm and self-assured, the dog comes to feed off our calm energy but I'm usually anxious during storms and not all that calm and Tibbe once again handles them better than I do.