Thundershirt…

$36 was a very small price to pay for peace, for Annie and for us.

Annie would pace, and pant and be totally obnoxious whenever there was a storm.  She would start her pacing at the first sound of thunder, add lightening to that and she was a complete mess. We felt sorry for her, but she was so out of control, we just wanted to lock her in a room. But if we had actually done that, we would have had to replace a door by now.

We gave her “Calm tabs”  that worked a little bit, for a little while, but not nearly enough to make a comfortable difference. I started looking on the internet for a solution to her nervousness and found a cape that had medal threads in it. It was expensive for no guarantee and I just didn’t want to fork out the money. We got an emergency blanket (you know, the silver ones you should have in your emergency kit) and it worked a tiny bit, but made a lot of noise. We tried locking her in the bathroom, because dogs are supposed to like being by iron (the bathtub is cast iron), and that also worked a tiny bit, but she didn’t like being locked in the bathroom. During one late night storm on a weekend that I had to work, I begged David to take her to the family room and kind of hold her. Thank you David for giving in to my whining!! Well he wasn’t going to do that for all storms, so I went back to the internet and searched some more.

I happened to be at work (tsk…it was slow at the time) and Cornelia and I were complaining about our dogs being afraid of storms, and I came across the http://www.thundershirt.com It works on the same principle that works on autistic children, where they calm down and feel secure when they are secured in something tight or heavy, like a weighted blanket. The Thundershirt is a soft knit fabric vest that closes with velcro. It attaches around the neck and snuggly around the chest, and by golly it works!

After each storm, Cornelia and I will compare notes. She had to hold her golden retriever and even let her sleep with them so she would calm down, but not any longer. The last storm that we had, May 22, 2011, was a doozy, an EF2 tornado came through just 10 blocks to our south and while it missed us, we still got a good storm out of it. I  happened to be at work, but David and my mother-in-law Marie both said Annie was comfortable enough to lay down and take a snooze during the storm. I would say that is $36 well spent.

Annie looks a little strange with her Thundershirt on, because she has so much fur. I think she sort of looks like her rope chew!!!