Need advice and/or tips...Long

kelshaws1311

My dog has already been nervous/scared around storms but in the last 6 months it has gotten increasingly worse. He just panics and freaks out whining. We have had him since he was a puppy and nothing has ever happened to him. He has always been crated during the day since he was a puppy so that is nothing new, last month I cam home and he had destroyed his crate trying to get out. Bent the metal, ripped his collar off, broke his nails, scratched his leg (there was blood) to the point we had to throw his crate away. Since then we have been putting him in the garage so he has room to lay down and walk around. We haven't had a problem with it until Monday night. We were gone 20 minutes and it rained..NO STORMS. He chewed through the wall trying to get to the family room, he managed to chew/eat insulation, dry wall, 2x4's. I am not real sure what to do for him.

He is a Golden Retriever, 7 almost 8 years old. He is on prescription medicine for when storms hit. We tried putting blankets over his crate but he pulls them in and shreds them, tried a pillow bed and he shredded that. We have tried toys and bones in the crate and we come home and they are still untouched. I put him in there at 6:30am and he gets out at 5 pm. Sometimes I am able to go home on lunch but not every day. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for this?

formerlyGDaisy09

Poor doggy. First as a more general comment, dogs should not be put in crates with a collar on, uness it's a break-away collar, they can actually get it caught and strangle themselves. 

Try a Thundershirt and one of the pharamone wall plug-ins.  

when you're home during a storm you need to be actively trying to turn it into a positive experience for him. does he like treats? KONGS? get out lots of things he enjoys and have a little party. have you done training with him, work on sit, down, come, paw, etc. all with positive treat re-inforcement. I have a girl that gets nervous in new situations, but treats and some behaviors that she is familiar with help to calm her down some. 

before you leave the house check the weather for storms (or just rain) if it's possible to take him with you if storms are predicted, do it. put the thundershirt on and bring lots of high value rewards. 

Look into the all plastic travel crates (designed to go on airplanes, though I'd never subject my dog to traveling in the underbelly of a plane) like this one it'll have fewer sharp edges for him to hurt himself on, and it would probably be safe to crate him with the thundershirt on. 

TarponMonoxide

kelshaws1311 said:

My dog has already been nervous/scared around storms but in the last 6 months it has gotten increasingly worse. He just panics and freaks out whining. We have had him since he was a puppy and nothing has ever happened to him. He has always been crated during the day since he was a puppy so that is nothing new, last month I cam home and he had destroyed his crate trying to get out. Bent the metal, ripped his collar off, broke his nails, scratched his leg (there was blood) to the point we had to throw his crate away. Since then we have been putting him in the garage so he has room to lay down and walk around. We haven't had a problem with it until Monday night. We were gone 20 minutes and it rained..NO STORMS. He chewed through the wall trying to get to the family room, he managed to chew/eat insulation, dry wall, 2x4's. I am not real sure what to do for him.

He is a Golden Retriever, 7 almost 8 years old. He is on prescription medicine for when storms hit. We tried putting blankets over his crate but he pulls them in and shreds them, tried a pillow bed and he shredded that. We have tried toys and bones in the crate and we come home and they are still untouched. I put him in there at 6:30am and he gets out at 5 pm. Sometimes I am able to go home on lunch but not every day. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for this?

Try a Thundershirt --- I've also heard that leaving a radio on and tuned to something like a talk show will help, also.

GABride2010

My yellow lab Baylee does this too! She has gotten progressively worse as she has gotten older (she is 10 now, and we think her hearing is not so good). She destroyed her plastic kennel, and now tries to "eat" her way out of the laundry room (chews on the wood door). BTW, the wood door is an inside door. The door to the outside is metal. She has ruined the door, and some of her teeth We have used various methods to try to help her, but nothing really worked. We put a radio in the room with them (we have two dogs), and it seemed to work for about a month or two.

When Baylee was 6.5, we got another puppy, a black lab named Elli. DH and I kennel trained her because she was a puppy. Elli is 3.5 years old now, and she doesn't have to be in her kennel when we are not home because she is older and well trained. DH and I have found that when our dogs are in the laundry room, and Elli is in her kennel, then Baylee will chew on the door when it storms. When Elli is not in her kennel, Baylee does not chew on the door, no matter how bad the storm. 

I'm not saying you should necessarily get another dog, this is just what works for us! I hope that you find a good solution for your dog!

ETA: Fixed spelling