Well, not so much when your 70 pound dog has horrible storm anxiety. Sandea's anxiety is intense. She is a stray that we found and I am sure she was a former chained up, outside dog forced to live in storms. But living inside hasn't changed the fact that she is still terrified by storms.
We were woken up about 230a this morning by alerts on the radio and instantly knew we were in for a long nite. Sure, I can function on 3 hours of sleep!! I crawled out of bed, grabbed her Thundershirt, and quickly put it on her. So we battled round one of the storms for about an hour, fell back asleep, when round two came about 5. Rather than continue to fight with her, I decided just to get up since it was almost time anyway and I gave her one of her sedatives. Unfortunately, the storm has been gone about 2 hours and her sedatives are finally working. Perfect timing!
Poor Sandea. I feel bad that she is so scared, but it is definitely not fun to deal with. Anyone who has a dog with anxiety knows that it's very frustrating. Constant panting, drooling, scratching, shaking, trying to get wherever you are. It gets annoying, especially because I don't have a lot of patience. But come one, it's January, not April! We will be dealing with this all spring, meh....
Luckily the last few times we have had bad storms, one of us has been home to deal with her, but I hate when we are gone and storms hit. She has cost us a lot of money because she has torn up lots of our doors, ripped off door handles, and even bent the super thick wiring on her dog crate (we learned real quick she wasn't a fan of being in a large crate). We have tried a couple different sedatives and the one we have found that works, rarely works during storms because by the time it kicks in, the storm as passed. . . like now. She is knocked out!
Needless to say, I am very tired today. It doesn't help that it's cold, gloomy, and ugly out, but I'll have another cup of tea and hopefully get some energy so I can clean and study today. I'm sure tonite will be an early to bed nite and hopefully no more storms.
Have a great day, everyone!
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| This is Sandea in her Thundershirt. |
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| What she did to my closet door one day when we weren't home. |
4 comments:
That is so funny! My bestows dog hides under the bed during storms and cries and barks, and you cannot get her out from there. It is so funny and frustrating at the same time.
Yes, it's definitely frustrating, especially when they are big dogs!
I know your pain! We have a staffie and she goes berserk when there is a storm coming. We don't even know about it yet and she is already going mad. I once closed her in my room, under a blanket! BIG MISTAKE! She pooed all over! But my mom gives her some natural relaxer, and then she is sooo calm.
Or we just open the car door for her inside the garage. She jumps right in and stays there till the storm is over! ha
Well it's good to know there are other bloggers with the same issues. That's funny about putting her under the blanket! I wish my dog could find a safe place...
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