The weather outside is frightening.. For your dog

Whenever a thunderstorm rolls through the area, and this week there has been many, my dogs start getting nervous. They bark, whimper, cry and howl not to mention hide. The smaller quickly passing storms bring out all the sounds mostly. The louder heavy rain thunderstorms that hang around cause them to hide. Do your dogs behave like this durning storms also?

 

Kash and Koko are oblivious to storms...Kotton on the other hand not so much. Her first two years she did great, never even flinching. When she was 2 and 1/2 we went through a spate of bad storms and now she is terrified of even the sound of rain

 

I haven't seen any of my dogs stressed out by thunderstorms. Maybe it's because we get that very often so the the dogs are used to it.

 

My adorable Homer doesn't care about thunderstorms. He acts like he didn't hear it. It's quite strange because there are quieter sounds that freaks him out. But not a thunderstorm nor fireworks - they don't scare him at all.

 

This isn't uncommon for a dog to be frighten by a storm, not to scare you but I had one dog actually get scared by a storm fled our yard then get hit by a car. Not the greatest of stories to share, so from that point on we brought our dogs in during thunderstorms in the hopes to calm them down. I remember my first Chihuahua, Buddy the first, he hated thunderstorms so much he would pace our hall up and down during them along with my sister who hates them just as much.

 

I used to think that dogs might be scared of thunderstorms because the thunder reminds them of gunshots. Then I realize that dogs can differentiate between the two. I can see that happening where I used to live before in South Thailand. Gunshots were by no means a totally rare occurrence.

 

My dogs get really annoying during a thunderstorm. They try and crawl up on my lap and get right in my face... like I can do something about it

 

Well, if you can't anything about it, your dogs must be very disappointed. They must have looked to you as some kind of god. After all, with a wave of your hand, you can make food appear for them.

 

It is usual that our dogs are afraid of very loud and sudden noise. So, very loud thunderstorms could scare them and made them hide under the table or under the bed.

 

My dog doesn't cry, but she runs under a bed as fast as she can and usually shivers. I think it has to do with the volume. Dogs have really good hearing. I can only imagine what thunder sounds like to them.

 

Our beagle was the only one out of our three dogs who would get scared by thunderstorms. She would always run into my room and get under my desk, sitting pressed up against my leg trembling. It would sometimes take her 15-20 minutes to calm down. I felt bad because there wasn't really much I could do to calm her down. Even if I put the radio on or something to try and mask the sound, she could still hear and feel the thunder.

 

I've read that when a dog does that, we're supposed to act like nothing is out of the ordinary. I tried it and it seems to help my Shih Tzu a little.

 

My dogs actually aren't effected by storms, which is weird, because these are the first dogs I've heard of like that. They don't respond to thunder or anything. They don't like going out in the rain, but other than that, they act completely normal.

 

One hates rain x

 

Typo sorry previous reply.
Mine hates rain.

 

It is getting better here as far as weather is concerned! But we have lot of heavy rain, and my dog doesn't want to go outside in it! Snow and ice, he seemed to enjoy it but with the rain, he just stood by the door, looking out and backing in

 

My dog is scared of thunderstorms as well, he generally hates any loud crashing or booming noise. It's funny because he's a big dog, but he cowers in fear when he hears rolling thunder. Seems they all do eh?

 

The mere mention of lightning sends shivers to our dogs. The cracking sound of thunder would scare our dogs. And the stress is evident when Barbie our pekingese would urinate. And when the tension continues with the continual strike of lightning, Barbie would defecate inside the house. Our family friend's dog died of heart attack because of the excessive explosions of firecrackers. And lightning or thunder sounds almost the same as the firecrackers which is menacing to our dogs. Other than lightning and thunder, our dogs are ferocious enough to strangers.

 

There was a thunderstorm where I live recently, and yes, my poor Frieda was so scared. So was my cat! I tell you, I have no idea how that cat survived when he was a stray one. He doesn't seem to be such a brave cat after all Now when there is a thunderstorm I know where to look for them: the bed; under the blankets. My little demons!

 

These are usually trying times for my dog especially when its raining accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning. Dogs kennels should be padded with an extra layer of insulation or sawdust spread in thick layers on the floor of the kennel to provide warmth. Sometimes we forget to close our earthen floor kitchen which is outside the main house and find that there was an unsolicited overnight visitor there who was sheltering from the vagaries of such weather there. To this end, I do leave it open willingly.