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We've been having a very loud booming thunderstorm this morning, and our previously fearless little Teddy, who is now 4½ months old, has taken storms in his stride. But this morning when we had some house-shaking thunder, we were sitting on the porch. Teddy was on his favorite loveseat, and he literally shot up into the air and leapt onto my lap from across the porch.
I didn't react at all, purposely ignored the whole thing. He was clearly pretty upset. The next time we heard a less scary thunderclap, I said, "Yayyy!!!!", which he understands, and I gave him a treat.
I don't want to go the Thundershirt route with this dog. I don't want to see him terrified of storms like Jimmy was all his life. And it was a sudden house-shaing thunderclap just like this one that sent Jimmy into Storm Phobia Land when he was about seven months old.
Am I doing this right? I know ALL about the calmatives, believe me. We tried everything for Jimmy's 14 years. I just want to nip this in the bud. We have a Thundershirt. I just don't ever want to have to use it for storms.
Thanks Dawn, but I reacted like that because of so many things I read when Jimmy was a puppy. You're supposed to act nonchalant or even build an association between thunder and treats. Comforting a scared puppy only reinforces the fear, kind of like feeding online trolls by reacting to them.
Unfortunately, with Jimmy, my husband was always there to sabotage me. He said I was being cold by not comforting a frightened dog, and he would scoop Jimmy up and stroke his head. I had worked so hard to prevent storm phobia with Jimmy, even teaching him to catch a ball out in our porch during thunderstorms. I always wanted him to associate storms with FUN, and for awhile, it seemed to be working. Then one day while peeing, he was startled out of his skin by loud thunder and a bolt of lightning, and that was the end of that. I never could bring him back from the fear. Husband was always undoing what I tried to accomplish!
That won't happen with this little man, I'll see to that. But I did just find him curled up in the corner of a dark hallway, which is unlike Teddy, so I don't know if what I did worked.
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I know that technique -- not comforting but acting nonchalant instead -- but I love that you did "Yayyyy!" and gave Teddy a treat. It's just perfect.
I can understand, though, your husband's gut instinct. It's the same as mine with Artie. I want to *protect* him and I associate "protecting" with "coddling and cuddling." As soon as I start doing that, I realize that it's wrong, but since that was my first reaction, it wouldn't make sense to Artie if I was then nonchalant -- he wouldn't make the association.
When scary stuff happens, I turn it into a party. My current dog is fearless so it's rarely necessary, but with my other dogs (like when one was scared of the ice cream truck), i just did basically the same thing you did. Treats and fun stuff so they got to associate it with good things. Let it go too far before you start the "party" though and you end up rewarding the fearful behavior. It's a fine line.
In the case of a dog that is not already storm-phobic, I'd probably take a similar approach to what Tina described: acknowledge the sound and pair it with a pleasant experience like praise, petting, and treats in order to form a positive association. I'd make sure to remain in a calm, relaxed state myself even while rewarding.
In the case of a dog that is not already storm-phobic, I'd probably take a similar approach to what Tina described: acknowledge the sound and pair it with a pleasant experience like praise, petting, and treats in order to form a positive association. I'd make sure to remain in a calm, relaxed state myself even while rewarding.
OMG, I am mortified. Why didn't I recall that from "The Other End of the Leash"? That's my favorite dog book! We even took Jimmy up to Patricia McConnell's behavioral clinic in Madison, WI to try to help him, but he was 7 years old by then and pretty much hardwired. See? I told you we tried everything, LOL!
sounds like what you did was perfect. ive foud if a dog stats exhibiting thunder fear though (which in this case souns more like a startle form a sudden crack than the actual storm) ife found simply playing a storm nature d on low in the background and slowly turning th volume up as part of an every day routein helps immensely (ive also used this technique for folks whos dogs arnt comofrtbale with babies crying but there having a baby ect...) simple desensitization...
but in our case sounds like you hadled it perfectly and keep that up an you shouldn't have any issues with al but the biggest claps of thunder
Rags would have seizures and wet herself when she got scared. So when bad weather was coming I would get down on the floor with her on an old towel and play with her. I would cuddle or read to her or sometimes we would listen to the radio. The main thing was I was close and this worked. never wanted to feed her cause of the seizures and possibility of choking.
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