We have a 5-year-old golden retriever mix that we picked up as a stray about
a year ago. He is a great dog. Well-mannered, friendly & obedient.
Everything you could ever hope for in a dog. After searching for the owners
without any luck, we decided to keep him. We never could figure out why
anyone would dump such a wonderful dog. Then we went through our first
thunderstorm with him. The dog was a nervous wreck. Panting and shaking
like a leaf. Things got worse. If we aren't home with him, he becomes
destructive and tries to chew his way out the back door. Our vet
recommended a tranquilizer, Acepromazine, 25 mg. The tranquilizer doesn't
seem to help except that he sleeps like a log when the storm is over. We
tried putting him in a kennel and he tried to chew is way out. The latest
episode happened last night while we were at a hockey game. When we left,
we gave him a pill because thunderstorms were in the forecast. When we got
home he had destroyed the molding on one side of the door and had scratched
the wall near the door. This is a wonderful dog that means a lot to my wife
and me. I need help curbing his destructive reaction to thunderstorms.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

On 2004-04-11 01:54:24 -0400, "Stephen Coxe" said:

This is a wonderful dog that means a lot to my wife
and me. I need help curbing his destructive reaction to thunderstorms.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

If you do a Google Groups search for thunder phobia or thunder, You'll
find that this has been discussed frequently and that a lot of people
share your problem.

We found that we had to do a whole program that involved a number of
elements and took time, but our thunder phobe is about 90% better. We
use plain old Benadryl if we know a storm is coming, because it takes
about 45 minutes to work. We do a lot of happy happy stuff to keep our
dog distracted (make popcorn & rain it from the sky, etc.) We also make
time to have the scared dog come up on the bed for snuggle time. We
have a routine. Obviously, not everything works all the time, but there
is hope. If you look at some of the desensitization that Matt did
(Rocky is the posting name) you'll have some really good advice. Not
every technique works and sometimes no one thing works, either. So,
with patience & some experimenttion, you can improve things for your
dog.

Our dog knows what the step are that make her feel better and is
perfectly capable of initiating the sequence.

On 2004-04-11 01:54:24 -0400, "Stephen Coxe" said:

This is a wonderful dog that means a lot to my wife
and me. I need help curbing his destructive reaction to thunderstorms.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

If you do a Google Groups search for thunder phobia or thunder, You'll
find that this has been discussed frequently and that a lot of people
share your problem.

We found that we had to do a whole program that involved a number of
elements and took time, but our thunder phobe is about 90% better. We
use plain old Benadryl if we know a storm is coming, because it takes
about 45 minutes to work. We do a lot of happy happy stuff to keep our
dog distracted (make popcorn & rain it from the sky, etc.) We also make
time to have the scared dog come up on the bed for snuggle time. We
have a routine. Obviously, not everything works all the time, but there
is hope. If you look at some of the desensitization that Matt did
(Rocky is the posting name) you'll have some really good advice. Not
every technique works and sometimes no one thing works, either. So,
with patience & some experimenttion, you can improve things for your
dog.

Our dog knows what the step are that make her feel better and is
perfectly capable of initiating the sequence.

On 2004-04-11 01:54:24 -0400, "Stephen Coxe" said:

This is a wonderful dog that means a lot to my wife
and me. I need help curbing his destructive reaction to thunderstorms.
Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

If you do a Google Groups search for thunder phobia or thunder, You'll
find that this has been discussed frequently and that a lot of people
share your problem.

We found that we had to do a whole program that involved a number of
elements and took time, but our thunder phobe is about 90% better. We
use plain old Benadryl if we know a storm is coming, because it takes
about 45 minutes to work. We do a lot of happy happy stuff to keep our
dog distracted (make popcorn & rain it from the sky, etc.) We also make
time to have the scared dog come up on the bed for snuggle time. We
have a routine. Obviously, not everything works all the time, but there
is hope. If you look at some of the desensitization that Matt did
(Rocky is the posting name) you'll have some really good advice. Not
every technique works and sometimes no one thing works, either. So,
with patience & some experimenttion, you can improve things for your
dog.

Our dog knows what the step are that make her feel better and is
perfectly capable of initiating the sequence.