Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Severe Storm Anxiety
Long story short, my 3 year old Shih-Tzu was born in a puppy mill and lived there for 1 1/2 years before he was finally rescued. We adopted him shortly thereafter and he has been a WONDERFUL pet. However, he is rather fearful of most loud noises and jumps at nearly anything. At first storms seemed to just bother him but he didn't really show much sign of anxiety other than some mild shaking. Over the past year and a half, it's gotten much much worse. He shakes so badly you can see it from across the room, he pants, whines, cries, hides, and shows anxiety for hours (sometimes days) after the storm. We have tried EVERYTHING. I've rubbed him with dryer sheets, he has a thundershirt, we close up the house so he can't see the lightning, turn on calm music to try and mask the thunder. . . none of it works. We have tranquilzers from the vet that we use for fireworks, but with it being Spring and storms becoming more frequent, I would hate to have to drug the poor little guy every time. Any suggestions that I may not have tried yet?
Re: Severe Storm Anxiety
My dog does the same. I open the closet door and let her hide out in there. If we are in bed I put the blanket over her. It seems to settle the shaking, but not always.
Is he harming himself or being destructive during storms? If it's really bad enough (and I were in your shoes) I would look into anti-anxiety medicine from the vet.
Sometimes the training actions that you can take aren't effective when they're at that level of anxiety. If you can lower the anxiety it makes it a little easier to do the training.
Does your vet have a behaviorist that they could recommend to you?