by Dr. Howard A. Mintzer

Q. Joe F. of Arlington writes:

The past 2 weeks have been a nightmare for my Labrador Retriever, Blackie. He is terrified by thunderstorms. During the stretch in mid June where we had hours of thunderstorms each night he didn't sleep at all. He just paces and pants and tries to hide in every closet and under every bed in the house. During one all night storm he finally collapsed at daybreak into the bathtub. I feel really bad for him. What can I do?

A. Many dogs share Blackie's problem and as you've noticed, this time of the year can be very bad for them. Thanks to El Nino we've started off with a terrible thunderstorm season this year and as the weather gets warmer, the thunderstorms will probably get more numerous and intense. It's not only the dogs. I don't remember being awakened in the middle of the night as frequently by thunderstorms in past years. Of course I don't usually pace all night and fall asleep in the bathtub!

The mainstay of treatment for thunderstorm anxiety in dogs has always been tranquilizers. Tranquilizers work well. However, they do have their drawbacks. They work much better and at lower doses if you can give them on an empty stomach and before your dog hears the thunder begin. This can be difficult. Dogs' hearing is much better than ours. They seem to be able to detect the low frequency rumble of an approaching storm while it is still an hour or more away-much sooner than we are aware of the storm. You can overcome this if you have heard on the radio that a storm is approaching, or if you notice the static of an oncoming thunderstorm while listening to AM radio. However, often the storm will miss us and you will have sedated your pet for no reason, leaving your dog dopey and stumbling around the house for three or four hours. Another problem with tranquilizers relates to the frequency of thunderstorms, especially this year. Do you really want to sedate your pet each afternoon for perhaps a week at a time? If your dog gets unbearably frantic during storms, tranquilization may be your only choice but if the problem isn't too bad you need to ask yourself if you want your dog to be a zombie for days on end during the spring and summer.

An excellent but difficult to achieve alternative to tranquilization is something called behavior modification or conditioning. Do you remember learining in school about the Russian scientist Pavlov? He was the first researcher to study behavior modification of instincts. Normally when you show dogs meat (stimulus) they salivate (response). Pavlov rang a bell (new stimulus) when he showed them the meat. Eventually the dogs would salivate upon hearing the bell. These dogs behaviour was modified or changed. They heard a bell and they salivated-something not found in nature. You can attempt to modify your pet's behavior so that he loses the fear of thunderstorms. Unlike Pavlov, you are not going to change the stimulus (sight of meat to the ring of the bell) rather you will change the response from being scared of thunderstorms to being calm.

In order to attempt to change your dog's behavior you will need to purchase a compact disk or tape that features a thunderstorm. These recordings are made to relax and provide background noise for stressed out people and can be found in book or record stores. Sit with your dog in a quiet room with no distractions. Have a treat for your pet in your pocket. Start playing the thunderstorm recording at the lowest possible level. Hug, pet and reassure your pet while the recording plays on for about 5 minutes. Just before ending the recording give your dog a big hug and the treat from your pocket. On the next day, repeat the procedure, this time making the thunderstorm a little louder. Continue to hug, pet and reassure your friend. If at any time your dog begins to get nervous, pants or starts to pace, return the playback to the volume level at which your pet is no longer anxious. Reward calm behavior with hugs, pets and reassuring words. Never reward anxious behavior but don't punish anxious behavior either-just lower the volume until your pet is no longer anxious. Continue to do this every day, increasing the time to about 15 minutes and the volume slowly until your pet is able to sit through what sounds to you like a real thunderstorm.

If you have been diligent and have followed the instructions properly it may be possible to "kick" your pet's tranquilizer habit. Your pet will have been reconditioned to associate the thunderstorm with being hugged, petted and given a treat rather than getting anxious. That is the good news. The bad news is that conditioning is much easier to accomplish when you have a few thunderstorm free weeks to work with. While you are slowly raising the volume of your recording each day, having a full blown thunderstorm upset your pet can destroy all of your hard work! Therefore unless the forecast looks like we are going to have a few quiet weeks (and how can you really count on that during the summer) it is best to give tranquilizers for the rest of this year and start to condition your pet in the fall. If you do condition your pet well this fall, remember to give him a little refresher course in the early spring each year before the real boomers begin to hit us.