My dogs make it through the 4th of July with the selective use of Melatonin and a ThunderShirt. I suggest you use them too if you have noise phobic dogs.
Dublin gets a Frisbee workout in his ThunderShirt.
I’ve already discussed Melatonin before on the blog and I’ve documented my experience and dosing information later in this post, so I’d like to start off with the ThunderShirt. It’s one of those things that sounds like woo-science and an expensive gimmick that probably won’t work and you’ll just be too afraid to take it back after it proves ineffective. Being a skeptic and a general curmudgeon, it’d give me much pleasure to tell you all that the swaddling compression shirt is a big scam and not to waste your $40. But I think it’s actually an effective tool, I’ve seen it work on my own dogs, and enough of my dog sport friends report very positive results with it that I feel no trepidation in recommending you give it a shot.
The basic theory (and again, getting hard science on this is going to be difficult making worries of woo all the stronger) is that compression helps with anxiety just like swaddling a child, the comforting fully body hug Temple Grandin speaks of as effective for some Autistic people, the radical hug therapies, compression garments worn by burn victims and athletes, and even massage therapy techniques.
Let me make it clear that unlike the bogus claims of some skeptics, the goal and proper use of the shirt is not to overly restrict your dog’s movement. As you can see above in the photo and below in the video, Dublin does just fine running and catching a Frisbee in his ThunderShirt which I put on him in case the passing storm turned around or we caught the tail end of a strike while we were out at the park playing.
Some animals respond to the compression by not moving much at all and there’s a funny video of a cat that just shuts down and refuses to move when wearing a shirt that is obviously several sizes too small for his cat. But I’ve seen this behavior in dogs with as little as adding booties to their feet to allow better traction for Frisbee demos on hardwood arena floors. No one would suggest that little dog booties are overly restrictive on the dog’s movement, but the dog protested by not wanting to move at all.
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The goal is not to strangle or incapacitate your dog, it’s a compression vest not a straight jacket and if sized correctly it does not bind the limbs or joints at all. In fact if there is a possibility to do harm with the jacket, it’s most certainly in using one that is the wrong size and applied too tightly which could pinch off blood supply or nerves to the extremities, much like wrapping vet-wrap too tightly on a dog’s limbs. Don’t do that, you don’t want to harm your dog while trying to help it.
What I notice when using the ThunderShirt is that the dogs are initially reticent to move about excessively and yet they are not in pain or desirous to remove the garment. They’re fully able to try to remove it themselves if they don’t like it, and yet I’ve never had them try. Nor will they destroy it when it’s left about (which is what they do to things they don’t enjoy like the hair brush or the nail clippers… those things get buried in the yard or chewed to pieces. Rather, the dogs enjoy the shirt and will come up and paw for it when I get it out.
Within a few seconds of the shirt being on, the dogs chill out, get a little Zen and are just not highly reactive or anxious. To me, a single $40 investment to help take the edge off during desensitization training has been well worth the money and the product is nicely made and has lasted several years and through a few wash cycles (mostly when I take it out to the park and the dogs fund a mud puddle to cool off in).
Severe thunder and fire works anxiety is a major problem for dogs during the 4th of July holiday. More dogs are lost today than any other day of the year, by far. Don’t let your dog become a statistic, and don’t let them continue to suffer from the common problem of noise phobia. There are no miracle solutions, no singe pill or product or trick that will obviate the issue instantly and permanently. It will take work on your part. But there are some things you should try that are cheap, easy, and worth decreasing or eliminating the panic some dogs develop over the loud noises this time of year.
I recommend Melatonin and the use of a ThunderShirt based on my own experience of satisfactory efficacy of both products in treating my own dogs’ noise phobia. I don’t get paid by any Melatonin manufacturer or the makers of the ThunderShirt, I offer this advice only because I’ve seen these two products work on my own dogs.
The brain is the least understood organ in humans, dogs, and all animals. We don’t have a robust understanding of how it works and why many treatments for neurological disorders and conditions work. A lot of it is basically guess and check and stumbling on drugs that alter brain chemistry, usually with rather negative side effects. There is no cure for anxiety and depression, there are only treatments that work o.k. for some people, and some dogs.
It’s already too late to employ desensitization techniques for today’s fireworks, but you can use today as your first lesson. I’d recommend tiring your dog out this afternoon before the big fireworks start, getting some high value treats like bacon, liverwurst, cheese or peanut butter and when the bombs go off, start treating your dog to associate the sound of the explosion with the treat, much like you “charge the clicker” when first starting clicker training. There are 100 videos on youtube and any dog trainer worth their salt should be able to walk you through desensitizing your dog to the sound of the doorbell or other dogs barking or even thunder and lightning (although those are a bit harder because reproducing those sounds convincingly takes a hell of a sound system).
So if your dog panics during summer storms or fireworks celebrations, book your appointment now for a trainer to help you with the rather straightforward techniques.
But since it’s already the 4th and training takes TIME to work, try Melatonin now.
Melatonin is a natural hormone found in all living things and an antioxidant with very little risk of overdose. I reviewed the literature and could not find a harmful effect of overdose. Contact your Veterinarian for the right dose for your dog, but I’ve found 3mg effective for my 45 pound dogs. Searching the internet seems to suggest does around 1mg per 10 pounds of up to 3x per day with a max of 6mg per dose even for dogs over 100 lbs.
Studies show that Melatonin is rapidly absorbed and reaches its maximum concentration in the blood between 20 and 30 minutes after dosing and has an elimination half life of 5 hours, so it can be given minutes to hours before a storm/fireworks show.
Melatonin is NOT a sedative, you won’t have a woozy or knocked out dog as a result. Some Vets recommend Benedryl to act as a mild sedative but I’ve not tried this or found it necessary.
Other drugs which treat mood disorders and noise phobia require weeks of daily dosing to reach appropriate and efficacious levels in the body. Melatonin does not. You do not need to put your dog on it long term or pre-dose days before the storms or fireworks. While it’d be optimal to dose in advance of the storm, I’ve noticed calming effects within a few minutes of a dose. The cheap and readily available 3mg pills (the typical human dose for sleep and stress relief) are easy enough to pop down the dog’s throat or hide in a treat and it does come in liquid form which can be given under the tongue. Just be sure that there’s no sweetener like xylitol in the liquid form as that is toxic to dogs.
Most every grocery or vitamin store carries it for cheap, so pick up some when you run out for last minute barbecue items for your 4th of July celebration.
And no, I don’t own stock in a Melatonin company, and I’m hardly a pill pusher. I’ve just seen Melatonin work a miracle first hand.
Growing up, I lived less than a mile from a country club that hosted a fireworks display every year that is known for low-shot mortars that burst right overhead, and knock the wind out of you with every burst. The rich know how to party.
The best viewing for this yearly show for those of us who mow our own lawns is the elementary school parking lot half-way between home and the club. If the wind is right, the spent shells of the mortars will actually land in the lot, bringing a cloud of sulfur with them.
The tangible proximity and explosive percussion make for great entertainment, but whether we went to the show or not, the dogs never enjoyed the evening. What started as mild discomfort and hiding–that was easy to overlook or consider problematic–grew each year reaching full blown paranoia and panic.
Black Jack ate through this hollow core door to after busting out of his crate in the basement because of the loud local fireworks. Melatonin worked the next year to ease his anxiety greatly.
We didn’t appreciate it how bad the situation had gotten until we returned home to find that Black Jack, whom we had locked safely in the downstairs laundry room, had become so distraught at the noise that he chewed halfway through the hollow core door trying to escape.
Black Jack’s noise phobia was contagious and Bonnie Belle soon began leaving the room when people sneezed or hiding under the table when someone banged the pots pulling them out to cook dinner. These were adult dogs who hadn’t displayed the level of fear they had grown into during their early years.
We found Melatonin and never had an incident again. The first summer both dogs were aware of storms and fireworks, but quickly dropped their fear response, and during the next 4th of July we all watched the fireworks from our back yard without so much as a whimper.
With the current pack of dogs, I’ve used it selectively and prophylactically to cut possible noise phobia before it started, and it even helped me desensitize them to the new doorbell sound.
I recommend it highly, so ask your veterinarian about it. The all mighty google suggests that an appropriate dose for a small dog is 1/2 to 1 mg and 3 to 9 mg for larger dogs (25lbs+). Published studies showed no ill effects with amounts between 10-80 mg per kg of dog weight, MANY times the levels that appear effective for easing phobias.
Fast, effective, and safe. Do your dog a favor and give it a try. Save your laundry room doors from wanton predation!
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Thanks for the writeup on this. The recommendation of these products by one of my favorite blogging “curmudgeons” makes me all the more likely to buy a Thundershirt. Usually the people I know that say I should try it also believe in a lot of things like Rescue Remedy, lavender and things that I tend to raise an eyebrow at. Those items never did a thing for my dog, nor have I seen much of a difference with Dog APpeasing Pheremone even after having a plug-in for a couple of months, etc.
I don’t dismiss Temple Grandin’s work either. I haven’t read her stuff yet but to the best of my knowledge, she took agricultural science and behavior rather seriously and was astute. She wasn’t a New Age freak that I can gather. I have to say I was rather surprised this really worked in ways that did not involve a dog shutting down, because we hear all the time about how dogs really don’t care for our own hugs. Perhaps with the human arms and face out of the picture, the reaction is different? Does Grandin make any point of how human hugs and these compression devices may get different reactions and why?
I found what I have sometimes called a “Doppleganger” in New Hampshire; a woman in with her own kelpie. Sidebar: she happened to get it from a woman that I’ve never met in person but have come to dislike from my online experiences; the “German Coolie” breeder, who defends merle x merle breeding “if you know what you’re doing”. She also breeds kelpies.
Anyway, Miss. New Hampshire was the first to give a big promo to me on the benefits of melatonin, and also uses L-theanine. For whatever reason I opted to try the L-theanine first, but the deal with that is, you need to use it for a couple of months and it tends to be for dogs with lots of anxieties or long term, easily triggered hyper-reactivity. Tucker isn’t really like that but we never know when we will run into children, and the sounds of their play can make him tuck tail and pull the hell outta there.
Her blog.
http://lunatunahead.com/pawtistic/2013/06/the-random-program
Anyway, tonight is the big firework show and Tucker’s lack of noticeable reaction to as many as three Benadryl at once (vet said it was okay – Tucker isn’t even phased but I would be out for 12 hours) or a 1mg Xanax, is why I haven’t bothered to pick up the melatonin. But I guess we have nothing to lose.
Several of the Borzoi I brought back from Missouri three years ago are very phobic of severe thunderstorms. They start being nervous and want to come into the house up to an hour before a severe storm appears. We do have “pop up” thunderstorms in Maryland in the summer.
Most of them calm down once in the house, preferably for some of them, in a crate.
The other day I was having coffee in the kitchen with a friend and Snow Princess (“Snow P”) was in there with us and she started showing pre storm nervousness. Circling the kitchen restlessly like a goldfish in a bowl and panting heavily.
Why not try an experiment, I thought. When I am nervous and insecure I feel it in the area across my back at shoulder blade level. So I took a cloth leash and wrapped it around her chest just behind the shoulder blades and tied it snugly, not so tightly as to hurt her. She immediatley calmed down and resumed her previous behavior of begging for treats.
I few days later when another storm popped up I tried fastening a bungy cord around her chest, again the length was just correct to stretch the cord a little, so it stayed on with the hooks interlocked, but not tight enough to hurt her.
I am going get some ACE Bandage wrap and see how minimal a “thunder girth” can be to get the same effect. A lot cheaper and less restrictive than the full body thunder shirts I see online.
Christopher if you try something similar with your thunder phobic dog let me know if it works for you.
I have partially read the first of Temple Grandin’s books. I had some interesting things in it but I became more and more annoyed as I got into it and never finished it. The two most annoying things were: (1) All of her conclusions about dogs seemed (at least up to the point where I stopped reading) to be based on observations of one Labrador(?) owned by a friend of hers and (2) That people who were not autistic could not view the world from the point of view of a species of animal with which they were very familiar.
My childhood experience with horses (as in surviving learning to ride) taught me to run a “horse mind simulation” as a subprogram while being with, on or around a horse. People who do not learn to do this do not last as horse handlers/riders. I think this is a capacity that almost all people who can interact with large powerful animals and avoid being seriously injured develop. Some develop it with conscious study, others come by it with long experience without thinking deeply about it.
True there are the clueless, the ones who kiss strange dogs on the muzzle for example, or the bear researcher who was eaten in Alaska, but successful animal interactors learn to supress their primateness and have some idea of what being a canid or an equid or a bovid is all about.
Hearty yay! I don’t have a noise sensitive dog, but I do have a life sensitive dog. When he was a puppy, the Thundershirt saved his sanity and ours. As an adult, he understands that he needs to control his winding-up process, but under some circumstances simply can’t. This dog loves clothes, becomes mesmerized by the sensation of water showered over his back, and greets his Thundershirt with a joy just short of human words.
I think it might not work the same for every dog, but when it works, it really works. And the melatonin is long documented for its efficacy with noise-triggered fear, so…yea, verily!
Doranna recently posted..Don’t Want that Bad Good-bye
What on earth is a “life sensitive” dog?
Some of our dogs love water too I can spray them with the hosepipe on a hot day and they lean into it like its the best thing since three yearly vacinations.
My dogs shred clothes or at the very least they end up as ragged play toys.
“Life sensitive” sounds like it’s too scared to get up in the morning! Seriously?
No, sorry, that’s just my somewhat idiosyncratic sense of humor. He’s actually a bold little guy, but he does vibrate at an atomic level. Environmental stimuli wind him up. The Thundershirt winds him down. It has nothing to do with anxiety and everything to do with overstimulation.
Doranna recently posted..Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, George RRM, and ConneryBeagle
Happy 4th of July!
Fascinating I didn’t know Melatonin worked like that, I will be sure to give it a try during Chinese New Year.
I can’t tolerate fireworks, this is a direct result of fretting about forest fires, hill fires and for the bird life. I start (used to start) getting twitchy about a week before. Its so sad to see so many abandoned nests and dead chicks a few days later.
My dogs on the other hand are bomb proof. I battle to get them in during a thunderstorm. They don’t seem to realise the danger. When fire crackers go off or a gun shot it sets them growling and barking, hackles raised as though the Hun have just landed. Mostly is just a funeral service in the hills where they let off giant strings of fire-crackers to ward off ghosts, this is followed by hours of steady deep drumming. That or some idjit has taken up wild pig shooting in response to a destroyed veggie patch.
This is not a fear response in the dogs they do the same thing when they see a cat.
The Ovcharka on the other hand take their queue from the first explosions interrupting their sweltering evening quite and drag their big bones up the steps behind their villa to sit on the flat roof to get a better view. From there they can see the the whole fireworks display in the distant harbour beautifully. Too far to worry about but close enough to be of keen interest.
They only recently banned private fireworks here so I can at last relax a bit more about forest fires at least. There are however always the usual suspects that have managed to get some on the black market or from ironically perhaps a Buddhist monk. So its not entirely fret free.
I think there is a lot going for banning fireworks, though. In many countries this is a sensible reality and everyone including fearful dogs may now more or less safely breath again.
I used a Thundershirt for the first time on Tweed this July 4th, after it became apparent that someone had actually acquired a few impressive fireworks to fire off on our nearby beach this year. Tweed almost instantly went from scared and panting to calm and relaxed when I put his shirt on. I bought it for him when it became apparent that he gets frightened when there’s thunder, tho here in CA we unfortunately haven’t had any thunderstorms for a year, so I hadn’t had a chance to test it yet.
Oh shame yes I wish Rusty was still alive to be able to benefit from this new technology. He died late last year.
He was a village dog no particular breed, bright bright red colour about the size of a BC, upright ears and a lovely face.
He couldn’t stand thunderstorms. Would completely freak him out, panting and running around in circles. He could literally smell them coming.
Wonder if it would have helped.
I am under the impression (perhaps wrongly) that you are meant to ignore dogs like this instead of making a fuss as it makes it worse each time. However Rusty came to us quite old already and he wasn’t able to change.
Im not sure if this is not a failing in dogs in general, I know it was impossible to deal with and made him completely miserable. Wonder if there is a genetic factor at play here.
Makes me wonder about breeding for dogs that pass gun tests, and the processes of raising dogs to accept loud, sharp noises. I’ve read about it for hunting dogs all the time, but I would expect this would occur for dogs bred for police and the military, and yet I hear time and time again about dogs that return home from war for PTSD.
Either dogs unfit are being sent, or – and who could argue? – the ravages of war are such that no amount of breeding and training can reliably produce dogs that can deal with large-weapon-noise after a certain amount of exposure.
With respect to thunder specifically, a lot of dogs seem to see, hear or smell it coming. Many say it’s due to changes in barometric pressure, electric charges in the air, etc. I cannot deny that, but I wonder how much variation there is in dogs regarding sensitivity to all of that. Do some dogs pick up on it with their first bad experience, while others have to learn to associate it with the sounds over time?
My dog started out oblivoius to thunder when I got him. When kids set of firecrackers outside, he actually ran TO them, happy and playful. After a few years, he developed a phobia to both, which was disheartening. But with thunder, he could care less if a storm is coming. Nothing bugs him until the actual booms start up. I certainly hope that’s as far as it goes and that anticipation doesn’t start to take place.
Yes interesting questions.
It used to frustrate me seeing a dog go into such extreme angst, but even more so before there was even sign of a storm in the sky. He would start circling panting and shivering following my every step.
I didn’t know his past history but no doubt he had been terrorised by fireworks at some point early in his life being a local village dog but I also suspect this fear or no fear reaction to thunder and fireworks could simply be genetic in origin?
Hardwiring.
We had a storm today in fact a very noisy thunderstorm right on us and no one took the slightest notice, the only one to react was one of the JRTs who went and sat outside on the steps of the pavilion to sniff the air in the middle of the worst of it. Think he was happy he could smell rain coming as its extremely hot and oppressively humid at this time of year.
I was imagining cute tiny chard remains on the white steps so hurriedly distracted him back in with a well placed tennis ball through the French doors.
Here’s a counter argument from the perspective of evidence-based veterinary medicine.
http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2011/07/pressure-wraps-for-anxiety-in-dogs/
Hi Jen:
I read this counter argument link with interest. It starts out with something I totally agree…”Fear is a set of evolutionarily important behaviors for animals. Fear often keeps animals alive in a dangerous world….” However, just as Christopher reveals his experience with Black Jack …fear and panic completely safe his fear of survival caused an expensive repair to his home. Some years ago there was reported a Herding breed alone in the house this fear took over and this male jumped through a large plate glass window. Puppies left in hurricane in Florida due to force evacuation we so traumatized they were afraid of their own bark when Rescued. Experimenting over the years with dogs afraid of thunder and lightening, fireworks, lawnmowers behavior modifications appear to me to be as individual as the dog itself in personalities. We had a wonderful Collie but when you lite the fireplace …he would place his month around one’s wrist and want to get everyone out of the house. Another male when we were in the pool ran around the pool in a panic trying to pull us out of the pool. We had acquired this Collie before we had a pool.
We now introduce puppies for dual reasons such as if they fall in …how to get out. It is great exercise and helps in structural development. Yes, swimming Collies.
Now the dogs that panic over the lawnmower and use of heavy equipment, chain saws.
We had a collie that attacked a very expensive vacuum tearing it to pieces in seconds. His rage was not predicted or expected. Socialization early in the whelping box seemingly is the key. I found that many claimed house whelped and raised like the vacuum cleaner terminator who seemingly felt this thing I needed protection from…
We have previously experimented with old T-shirts of my husband’s with a Thunder fear. It seemed the body smell of my husband kept him calm. My husband’s shirt was used when he was taken away in an ambulance to get him in stranger’s truck because he had run after the ambulance for several miles. Waved it around for him to get the scent and threw it in the truck. He did not run away this time, but jumped into the truck.
So have we purchased and used the Thundershirt on older acquired recent addition …you bet we invested. $40.00 because it worked for this little lady, who had spent her entire five years in an outdoor kennel situation. She had never tasted even meatballs and spaghetti leftovers or knew real goodies came from a kitchen or refrigerator. Socialization takes patience but she still panics with the lawnmower. Using the Thundershirt take her for rides in a type of golf cart that does not make as much noise. She is slowly getting use to loud machinery.
Socialization when they are young is the key. Our last two litters have proven it works. When we do go out …or they are alone we play music or turn a radio on so any sounds they hear over ride new sounds that seemingly frighten and imprint. Well, like Chris states we just have to figure out how their brains respond and it is always not possible so take the problem up with your Vet if necessary.
soc