Pets and Thunderstorms!

Thunderstorms can be scary to us and our pets as well. Hibbs seems to be barely effected by thunder. Heeks is another matter. She is terrified by thunder and it seems to be getting worse. When we have a storm she sticks to me like glue, pants drools and shakes. Nothing comforts her until the storm passes. Being close to me helps somewhat but does not make her feel that much better. I am not sure what caused this awful fear Heeks now experiences. She was not always so scared.

There could be several reasons. One is that a lightning strike hit the tree right outside of our house about five years ago. It then hit the electrical box next to the tree and shot through all the electricity in our house. I lost several appliances but fortunately that was all that happened. The second thing that may have caused her reactions is the fourth of July. We have many people in our neighborhood that shoot off fireworks. A couple of years ago one of our neighbors set off a large amount of fireworks in front of our house. Heeks has been a lot more scared since then. She seems worse even since them though.

There are other dogs in our neighborhood that are terrified by thunderstorms also. Part of the problem could be that dogs have much better hearing than us. The cracks of thunder could be much louder to them than us.

All I can do that this time is to make Heeks as comfortable as possible during storms.

Anyone have any suggestions that may help calm Heeks during thunderstorms? Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated by myself and others that read this blog.

Thanks,

Donna