Preventing Thunder Phobia with Thunder Treats, or, Skip Becomes a Rug

Ah, the irony. I had planned to repost a piece about helping to prevent or treat thunder phobia, and then ended up in the cellar last Tuesday night after the TV weather dude said, not quite in these words, “There’s a tornado moving toward your house, it just hasn’t touched down yet.”

We are not quite in Tornado Alley, but they happen here on a regular basis. I was here in 1984 when the F5 Barneveld tornado went through one hill over, and believe me, standing at our closest neighbors in kindling, metal scraps, and trees sliced down like celery sticks is nothing like seeing it on TV or in photos. Which is hard enough. It is heart breaking, and deeply, deeply disorienting.

I’ve talked to numerous neighbors after this Tuesday night’s storm (which heartbreakingly devastated Greenfield, Iowa), and to a person they agreed with me: We’ve watched many a tornado warning without going to our respective basements/cellars/caves, but this time every one of us said some version of “Holy $@#^” and went downstairs.

But, here’s the thing. Skip, a dog of many talents, arrived here never having seen a staircase in his life, and decided they were a direct route to hell. This is the dog who throws his body fearlessly into gulches, fences, and impenetrable briar patches while working sheep or playing. But walk up or down stairs? Nope. (I promise I’ll get to one way to prevent/treat thunder phobia eventually. This is sort of an Alice’s Restaurant kind of piece–we’ll get to the point, it just requires patience.

Years ago, I started teaching Skip to go upstairs from the living room to the bedroom–easy enough, the stairs are steep but carpeted–and then decided not to. I thought it’d be nice at first to let Maggie have one place that was still her own, and eventually decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Skip has a movie star-handsome coat that sheds relentlessly, and my allergist says No Dogs in the Bedroom. Maggie understands that sleeping upstairs is our little secret (don’t tell), and Skip sleeps, seemingly happily enough, on the living room couch after cuddling with me on it much of the evening, and all is well.

I have often thought, “I really need to teach the dogs to go down the stairs to the cellar in case of a serious tornado warning.” This has been as effective as thinking “I really need to stop eating sugar and will never eat a strawberry-rhubarb pie again.” And then, Tuesday happened, and Skip became a rug. Which I will explain in a minute.

Here are the stairs, which Maggie had never been down herself.

Although she runs up and down the stairs to the bedroom, and in motels, she looks at these stairs as if they are a direct route to her worst nightmare. They are steep, have no risers (the vertical parts between the horizontal parts), and just look subjectively scary to any sentient non-burrowing creature. I take them very, very seriously, because falling down them could easily kill a person.

Last Tuesday, when the meterologists said “We mean it y’all, get your asses downstairs,” Jim and I listened. We had already filled the bathtubs with water, gotten out flashlights, disconnected some electronics (in case of power outages, which indeed happened), put towels and chairs downstairs for us all to settle on to, and gotten out leashes because I was sure luring the dogs downstairs with treats would be a fail. (This is when you shame me for not dealing with this sooner. I pretty much have that job description filled myself, so you might want to shame me for one of my many other faults.)

Once we decided we had no choice, we put the dogs on leash, I got out treats, and went down with Maggie. She did not want to go, and I admit to simply pulling her down the first few steps, time being of the essence. But lots of treats ensued once she got down two stairs, and she trotted down the rest relatively easily on her own, where she discovered that dried liver treats could also rain from the sky in the cellar.

Skip took one look at the stairs, realized that we wanted him to go down them, and ran to the farthest corner of the house. I was 110% sure we would never get him to go down himself before doom fell, so Jim went to pick him up. Imagine a 47-pound dog so flattened on the floor that he looked to be about 3 inches thick. A black and white throw rug, AARP approved because it was stuck to the floor so you couldn’t trip on it. Poor Skip, he was well and truly terrified, but my amazing husband peeled him off the floor, and got him down the stairs while I watched, by now almost as scared Skip, afraid they’d both fall.

They did not fall. No tornado touched down in our area; a fact about which I am still full of gratitude. Our power did go out, but not for days as happened to some in our area. Both dogs ended up exploring the cellar (mouse poop!), snacking on treats, and eventually settling down while we hung out, although Skip spent an inordinate amount of time licking his privates.

However, 70-80 mph winds have consequences. Every chain saw in southern Wisconsin was busy on Wednesday and Thursday. Some places got hit hard–huge trees on roofs and cars, hundreds of roads blocked. We came out well, we lost two big trees but nothing in our yard and our fence even survived a massive tree fall . . . (There’s a fence under there.)

Mostly we are grateful that things weren’t worse, and feel full of compassion for those who have suffered terribly from the storm. (And yes, of course, lessons on Going Down the Haunted Stairway have begun. I might even try to convert the stairway into a ramp; I’ll keep you posted.)

But wait, wasn’t I going to talk about preventing thunder phobia? I almost forgot, if you didn’t. But Skip will be happy to remind me, because I knew that Skip was a prime candidate for thunder phobia after being so frightened during the drama of Tuesday’s storm, replete with freight-train wind noise and house-shaking thunder. I was actually happy to hear that another big storm was due Friday, because the sooner I could start counter conditioning, the better. I was ready, and started giving out “Thunder Treats” during every boom. You can see from this photo who is more concerned, from a dog whose never been much concerned about thunder before.

But I kept it up. Every lap of thunder resulted in a piece of chicken. Over and over again. Thunder = Treat. Thunder = Treat. Thunder = Treat (The treats were pieces of cooked chicken, which I always keep in the freezer for emergencies. Don’t be wasting your time with some kibbly stuff, make the treats marvelous.) I replicated this probably 30 times in 3o minutes, all the while announcing “Thunder Treats” as if we had all discovered the meaning of life and would live in joyous harmony ever after. Both dogs would play Pleading Eye Dogs, but if there was no thunder I’d shrug my shoulders and say, sorry, no thunder, no treats. They’d have to wait for thunder to get more chicken. By the time I got to the end of the treat bowl, both dogs choose to lie down and go to sleep, even when the thunder was still booming. Countering conditioning dogs to thunder works like a charm, IF the dog isn’t too fearful of it yet.

IF your dog is either not afraid of thunder (thunder phobia often doesn’t start until three years of age), or, is only moderately concerned, like Skip seemed to be, counter conditioning with treats or ball play works beautifully, and it’s easy (except at three in the morning) . You don’t have to be there for every storm, but do it when you can, use the best treats imaginable, sympathize how sorry you are when there’s no thunder, and be genuinely happy when it thunders, and you get to give the dogs a treat.

However, once dogs have full blown thunder phobia, you might want to refer to my earlier post about treating serious thunder phobias. In this case, you need to up the ante. Talk to your vet about Sileo and other meds, consider body wraps and herbs, create a “safe house,” and do counter conditioning as the storm begins. But it’s far, far better to work on prevention now, which is why I’d advise playing Thunder Treats with any dog a few times, just to avoid trouble in the future.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Our gardens are both exhausting me and giving me immeasurably joy. Here’s one little garden at the edge of our driveway.

Columbine, the flower in front of the purple Iris below, is a native plant that self seeds every year. It seems to love it here, and I love having it.

I went all Georgia O’Keefe on this Iris, one of those flowers that you aren’t sure suitable for all ages.

And, best of all, Maggie is showing off the copies of The Other End of the Leash in Japanese! Regrettably, neither of us read the language, but I am thrilled to have this beautifully-produced book released in Japan. I received a few extra copies–if you or someone you love lives in the US (no foreign shipping please) and you read the language, the first message sent to support@patriciamcconnell.com will get a free autographed copy!

That’s one of my many delights this week. Yours? And tell us your thunder stories; I read over and over again how useful the comment section is to readers.