Ok so maybe they still are a little frightening. Especially to Chloe.  The loud scary booming noises send Chloe into a shaking, whining, pacing, frenzy.  In the past when we have dealt with storms or fireworks we tried to give her herbal calming meds, which hasn’t always worked very well… Here is a video of Chloe when the thunder first started.  I don’t think you can hear the rumbling over the loud rain, but trust me, there was most definitely thunder.

After I put the Thundershirt on to help calm her, it took about 20 min for her to finally settle down.  I bought this a few weeks ago to help with fireworks that go off here occasionally and first found it on the Tripawd website Amazon Tripawd Selections webpage.  It is based on something called Tellingtouch Therapy which is a gentle pressure massage that is supposed to help calm nervous animals naturally.  The design of the pressure wrap shirt “hugs” the dog and capitalizes on that principle.  Anyway after I put it on, she decided that the best place to hide was in her crate.  This is a video of her staying in her crate even while the thunder was going off.  Again, the rain drowns out the thunder noises.  She is still shaking and panting a lot, but at least she isn’t pacing or whining like before.  Baby steps, baby steps…

And for an hour she was doing so well!!! Then my roommate came home with a few of her friends and Chloe sold me out to go spend time with other people to protect her.    Gee I didn’t feel like I’m a worthless protector or anything.  Plus, she decided to get on the couch and curl up between two people.  My roommate thought it was the funniest thing though, so I decided to take a picture and let her stay where she was most comfortable.  Even after my roommate and her friends left, Chloe slept on the couch, downstairs, by herself in the dark.  She wasn’t interested in coming back upstairs…

In the past the Thundershirt has worked great on a few fireworks that have gone off.  However, we had some extremely loud claps of thunder right over the house and I think it was just too much.  I will be putting the vest on her more often now when she is calm to help ease her anxiety more easily in the future when a thunderstorm hits.  Rare though they are, I’d rather be prepared.  The only disappointing thing is that I don’t think Chloe will ever be “cured” of her fears.  The directions that came with the Tundershirt don’t extend beyond what I mentioned above.  They mentioned incorporating it in a training program, however it just regurgitated advice I can look up on google in 2 seconds like, “when you are gone, leave them with something that smells like you or give them toys to play with to keep them occupied…etc…” you know the things I listed in my separation anxiety training that I have found don’t work for Chloe.  That is the only downside to the recommended use for the product.  Guess I am just going to have to use my brain and figure out something myself!