Georgie had severe astraphobia (thunderstorm anxiety) when he came to live with me. The first couple of times that a storm came up when I wasn’t there to calm him, he tried to eat through my bedroom door and through bedsheets, probably to try to find me. He also chewed door frames when he wanted to get into a room. Until I could figure out a way to help him, I called his vet who prescribed trazadone to calm him. That only worked marginally. He would be reasonably okay when I was with him but still showed signs of extreme anxiety whenever the barometric pressure dropped or he heard thunder or saw lightning. I wasn’t a fan of medicating him but surel did not want to see him hurt himself or become too destructive so I started studying options and talking to others who had dogs that experienced similar problems.
The first thing I did was to give him some comforting places to go. He seemed to like my walk-in closet the best. As long as I was with him, he seemed reasonably calm with some white noise from a box fan to help mask the thunder. So that became our go to place.
Along with that, I bought him a Thundershirt. I had read that pressure garments were calming and in my work as a physical therapist had seen pressure garments and weighted vests help to calm some children with behavior issues due to disabilities so felt there was some basis there, even if only anecdotal. I didn’t see any quick results but it did seem to have a calming effect, especially during long and extremely loud storms.
I also tried some of the calming oils and preparations that were available commercially , like CBD and other hemp oils. I noted nothing miraculous but I felt like certainly worth trying.
After several months of Florida storms, what ended up being the best approach was first of all, to be there if at all possible. If I was there and had his Thundershirt on, he was okay in our safe place, the closet. When I had to be at work and knew a storm was coming, I would give him a 100 mg trazadone and allow him access to my closet. As time went on, this seemed to be the most effective approach and Georgie’s anxiety became manageable ineven the worst storms. As long as he had access to the closet, there were no more incidents of trying to chew his way into rooms or through bed sheets and I was relieved to know he wasn’t hurting himself or totally terrified as was the case when he first arrived.