My Poor Puppies!!

Oh my gosh, they're like 6 and 7 this year, and they just get soooo scared with the big thunder (and especially lightning).

My wonderful matriarch Labrador, Shelby, crossed the Rainbow Bridge this past year (at 15), and she was afraid of nothing. Cisco and Rhode, were always firm when Shelby was around, but not anymore. The big storms roll in and they're skeered (they're under my desk right now, as it hails and storms).

These dogs aren't the big gun-dog Shelby was; to her thunder was just a long night of hunting. To these guys, they're afraid. It's funny actually...Cisco, the ACD, isn't afraid of anything; he'll take on the biggest bull in the corral, but come thunder and you can't find that boy. Rhode, his younger Australian Shepard brother, is even worse. Both fearless with giant animals who could kill them in a second, but when Mother Nature calls...Oh man..."Protect us, Dad, we're skeered...help us, okay???!!"

I now have a pile of dumb puppies under my feet, over my feet, blocking my feet. These two don't really even like each other, but they will pile on top of each other, around my feet, when the weather turns south.

What a couple of nuts!

So, now the storm has passed (5 minutes ago) and they're looking at each other like...Eeeewwwwww.

I love my dogs more than most people!! It's true!

My wife might be an exception. ...maybe.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I here ya!!!!!!!!!

Our first Husky only got afraid of storms when she got older....like 10 or so.
But she was afraid of me sneezing.
Seriously.
When she was a small puppy, I was carrying her outside when we talked to the neighbor.....she was like 2 months old or something.
I sneezed while she was in my arms.....and scared her for the rest of her life.

There is a theory that what scares a dog early in life.....a certain time period.....remains scary for them forever.
So, if you have dogs born in the spring.....and they were in bad storms at "that" age....that could do it.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Poor things.

My youngest doesn't like thunder storms but her mom doesn't seem to mind them. Neither like fireworks though.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

My 11 year old, 100lb Pitbull/Lab mix Zeus has been terrified by thunder and fireworks his entire life.
His sister that died last year, was not bothered by them at all but she would seem to try to comfort him by laying by him when it was happening.
We have tried everything but nothing helps.
My 4 year old Olde English Bulldog Ziggy isn’t bothered either.
Zeus has always been a quirky dog with different things throughout the course of his life...won’t go down the basement stairs, lived here 8 years and he has never been in the basement.
The other 2 would go up and down like it’s a racetrack.
He also won’t walk over any kind of cord on the floor....vacuum, extension etc., he freaks out when he sees one.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

We had some seriously close lighting strikes tonight and rain, I feel for Your pups.
My first dog was a Dachshund (not the boy in my avatar) that we named Cisco; he was the best sweetest boy ever. He broke my heart when he died and took a piece of my heart with him. We named him him Cisco after Saint Francisco. The name came to us because Dachshunds are called weenie dogs; hot dogs are called franks. Thus the shorting the name to Cisco.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I have 4 Patterdale Terriers who are capable of and have taken down a mean ass wild boar outweighing them aggregatiely by over 100lbs plus . The heaviest is my Zoey GottaKnowey, weighing in her pudgy butt at 28lbs, then Father Maxwell Smartass at 26lbs, sister Starella DeVille at 22#, and Mother Moxipad at 20lbs. .
They fear only me when I've just found an accident on the carpet...
and fireworks, thunder and the sound of a tree limb scraping against a windowpane. Scares them into...well...misbehaving on the carpet again.
I been hankering for new flooring anyway...

wussies, the lot, but I love em. And each are very different than was my prior Aussie pup who sadly lost in her battle with bone cancer.

I live near an army artillery firing range. At home and walking on the hills you can hear the rumble and firing and the dogs don't care. Come a distant roll of thunder and they start to get unsettled. Perhaps deep down dogs know that thunder and lightning equates to a storm, and in the wild that can be dangerous.

We have our one neurotic tabby left and poor thing has been suffering from the heat and humidity because we haven't turned the air on yet.

The storms rolled in late last week with a pretty good electric storm, and it made her nervous. She'd flatten herself out in a good sprawl just in time for the next big crack which would have her jumping up and trotting around in a nervous way before plopping down and flattening out again. Usually, she's not too upset by storms although she doesn't like them much, but that one had her pretty fussed.

We had one cat named AC who used to love thunderstorms, the more violent, the better. He'd sit right at the patio door and stare out at them. If he was ever nervous, you knew the sirens were going to kick on.