Summer Storms Bring Angst to Many Dogs

Summer is a great time to spend time outside with your dog, but for some pets, it is also a time of year that greatly increases anxiety levels when thunderstorms approach.  If you have a dog that experiences some form of storm anxiety, you know that they often seem to know a storm is coming before we do.  Dogs will often begin panting, pacing, and staying close to people in the house before darkening skies appear overhead.

This premonition seems to be based on a dog’s ability to detect the increased static charge when a storm is approaching.  Many dogs will try to cope by seeking out electrically grounded items.  This may explain why many storm anxious dogs end up standing in showers, bathtubs or even cars during the strongest portion of a storm.

Dealing with your dog’s fear is essentially a reconditioning exercise.  You need to find ways to help your dog learn either that the signals of an approaching storm can trigger positive events, or, at the very least, that there are routines to help calm the anxiety.  Depending on the individual dog, combination therapy – both behavioral modification and oral anti-anxiety medication – is often effective.

Behavioral reconditioning is usually accomplished through the use of audio tapes of storm sounds of varying intensity.  It is important that this is a gradual process, and that the dog is able to achieve a comfort level during each session.  If a dog is still uncomfortable at even low levels of storm sounds, forcing the dog to sit through the sounds will not accomplish anything beneficial.  Dogs this severely affected may need drug therapy first, to allow them to reduce their anxiety pharmacologically, and then adjust positively to storm sounds.

In addition, a small, but important part of behavioral modification is ensuring that our own actions towards our pets are not actually reinforcing their behavior.  Many of us want to try and calm our anxious pets, so as soon as we see these signs of distress, we immediately turn our focus on the dog, petting and speaking to them for an extended period of time.  If this truly calms a dog, then it might be reasonable, but in many cases, this actually serves to reinforce how the dog reacts to the storm.  A dog senses storm triggers, and knows that with his panting and pacing behavior, his person will drop what they are doing and focus completely on him – a great incentive to continue panting and pacing whenever a storm approaches.

A discussion with a veterinarian can help determine the best course of action behaviorally and pharmacologically, as we now have several different times of anti-anxiety drugs available to us for use in dogs.  Two other products have been described anecdotally as successful in some cases.  I have not yet tried either of them, but they are both safe and fairly inexpensive and may be worth a try in dogs that experience moderate storm distress.

Rhya Marohn, DVM

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