I am soooo confused!

[Verbena]

Glad it works. They make them for cats too. I can not see trying to get one on my cat and they keeping it on lol

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by Verbena

Glad it works. They make them for cats too. I can not see trying to get one on my cat and they keeping it on lol

LOL. I'd love to see a cat in one!

[Patti]

Thundershirt worked great for Pixie last year. Sometimes I had to add the calming medicine from my vet but this year she is terrible. No way to calm her down. She's even terrified of hearing the rain now. I think I need to go to sedatives soon. I was so happy that the thunder shirt was working. I wonder if they can get immune to it's effects.

[gracielove]

Originally Posted by Wallee

I know many people who have frightened animals in the thunderstorms. 2 of my 4 cats hide under beds. When I first got Wallee we were entering thunder storm season. We have a covered balcony on the front of our house so we mae sure we took him out there during the thunder and played with his toys. He was stil only 14 weeks or so so was so wrapped up in the toys that he never really noticed. I am thankful now as we had a very big storm the other night and the loud thunder woke me. I looked down on the floor at Wallee an he was laying upside down sleeping away oblivious to what was going on outside. I remember my parents always doing stuff like this with my siblings and I when I was little and practiced this with my own kids and thank goodness never had any of them wake during storms nor be afraid of them.

You know we did much the same thing with our kids. I remember being so afraid of thunder storms as a kid that I decided I did not want my kids to go through that. I would make a big fuss when a storm came but I would tell them how beautiful the lighting was and we had a game of counting to see how far the lighting strike was. It was all a good time and games when we had storms. I remember my kids thinking their little friends were a little strange when they would act afraid during a storm! In my kids minds storm times were fun times. It's worked well with Gracie, too.
I have to add that we do not live in an area that is tornado prone so we can have a different outlook.

[Wallee]

I am just so happy to hear you had a breakthrough today. I am sure it must be harder when the fear is already there. I had to resort to the rescue remedy for my little feral kitty to get him used to the storms. Now he is older he seems much more relaxed. I was so happy to have the chance to get Wallee used to them when he was so little as I have a sister who's dog hides in the closet when it storms. That is what prompted me to try to get him used to them right from the start. Lucky for me as well, we don't ever get any extreme weather here either.

[kjc]

Originally Posted by Patti

Thundershirt worked great for Pixie last year. Sometimes I had to add the calming medicine from my vet but this year she is terrible. No way to calm her down. She's even terrified of hearing the rain now. I think I need to go to sedatives soon. I was so happy that the thunder shirt was working. I wonder if they can get immune to it's effects.

Just wondering if she's feeling pain from her ortho surgery.... I have fierce pain with storms from old injuries and arthritis. Don't know if dogs get that too.

[Patti]

Originally Posted by kjc

Just wondering if she's feeling pain from her ortho surgery.... I have fierce pain with storms from old injuries and arthritis. Don't know if dogs get that too.

That's interesting, I never thought of that. Her fear did start about a year after her surgery. I think next storm I may give her some medcam and see if that helps. Thanks

[Maximo]

I am very happy to hear that your babies did well with the storms! We had a similar experience with Teddy and the Thundershirt. He doesn't need it anymore for thunder.

[kjc]

Originally Posted by Maximo

I am very happy to hear that your babies did well with the storms! We had a similar experience with Teddy and the Thundershirt. He doesn't need it anymore for thunder.

It was funny bc after I bought it, it didn't storm for months! I was dying to try it out, lol. I did do a few dry runs... Tink fell asleep with it on, and Finny, oh my, she thought she was in a straight-jacket, lol, and froze for a few minutes. LMBO! Then she moved around in it, tried to rub it off on the walkway outside, came inside and also fell asleep!

So this last storm, I'm all ready to put it on one of them, and nothing! And I'm not afraid of storms, but the thunder was coming in and sounded more like a train, I was like ' What the heck was that?' Was that thunder or what? Then the rain came and lasted all morning long. I must say though it was a totally different experience. I'm usually worried that one of them will have a heart attack, but this was actually nice, hearing the rain and seeing the dogs ignoring it. Life is good!

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by kjc

Just wondering if she's feeling pain from her ortho surgery.... I have fierce pain with storms from old injuries and arthritis. Don't know if dogs get that too.

Excellent point. I was wondering if she had something else going on this year to unsettle her more than usual. It could be related to pain or any other stress she is feeling - or that you are feeling. Poor little thing. Maybe you can get her some medication and dose her before coming bad storms and then try to get her healed up fully orthopedically and then maybe you can get one of those thunderstorm CD's and try to desensitize her a little bit. It's a shame these little ones have to be so scared. Some of them get so terrified they don't know what to do - they can't run from it or get away! You can't talk to them and rationalize or try to calm them because they tell us that's bad and makes them worse. The day that someone comes up with something that works for 90% of dogs fearful of storms is the day every doglover does a happy dance!

[Marhcarter]

Our last dog would always go outside and look at the sky when it stormed, and everyone told us how weird that was.(he loved fireworks, too) I realized that during storms, dh and I go outside and watch the sky because we both love storms. When we brought Huey home, I vowed to not have a small dog that ate the windowsills during storms, so every time it stormed, we took him outside and looked at the sky and talked about how pretty it was. It worked. When it thunders, he isnt fazed at all. I think it is definitely all about how you react. If you are scared, the dog senses that.