Thunder + nervous dog any tips?

Pretzill

I know many of you folk here are great for advice - so thundery here last couple of days anybody got any tips on how to calm down my upset border collies?

It's lovely that they run straight for me when they hear a clap of thunder - having one on my knee and the other one clinging to my side as I try to move around loses its cuteness after awhile and rubbing the tips of their ears only works to calm them for seconds. Now my older boy gets very worried, panting, trying to hide etc so I'm worried the panic may hurt him physically as he's not in his prime. Any tips welcome. Ta

Pumpkinseeds

We've had a lot of it here lately, I've put some soothing music for cats on for one of my cats who is scared of thunder. Found it on you tube, seems to work and they have some for dogs. Long term solution, you could buy them thundershirts(not kidding) I've heard that they can be very helpful and maybe try the dog pheremone plug in, can't think of the name of it, maybe DAP?

lorebringer

Provide a "safe place" for your dogs to go when they are afraid - a crate or under some blankets, even under a bed, would work. They need to feel like they can hide. Stay in the room with them while they are hiding and act totally normally. We have had really loud thunder recently and 2 f my guys are very afraid of it - we built them a fort of blankets to hide under and they just hung out in there until it was all over.

If you are worried about coming up to Halloween (fireworks!), you can get CDs that have firework noises, and others that have thunder noises, to get them used to the sounds and allow them to realise they are not frightening noises. Takes a little work but I have heard they are very good at curbing the fear some dogs have.

Pretzill

Thanks both of you - good tips - and things I hadn't thought about like the shelter -