This past week, we've had a number of storms in the middle of the night.
Usually, I sleep through them, unless they're very loud.
But when I wake up in the morning, I see my little Sammy, my Lhassa-Poo, has come upstairs to sleep next to my bed.
My little puppy is afraid of storms.
I have to say, he's gotten a lot better.
He used to high-tail it upstairs and jump in my bed, scaring me half to death.
He'd scamper across the bed, trying to get under the pillows, shaking and trembling, sometimes pooping in my bed.
Great.
I'd never known a dog that was so terrified of storms.
My older dog, a cocker mutt, doesn't mind rain or thunder or lightning or snow or any kind of weather.
But if there's a particularly thunderous boom, the kind that makes you jump, even Roby will slither into the room where I am.
He doesn't freak out, but he wants to at least be in the same room, just in case.
But I think Sammy can feel the storm coming long before I even notice it.
He might be noticing the shift in air pressure.
Or perhaps his hearing is just better than mine, and he's hearing the thunder a long way off.
If your dog is afraid of storms, what do you do? Do you hold her and try to soothe her? Do you let her get into bed with you? That's what I used to do.
I'd let my little Lhassa-Poo jump in bed, and I'd hold him and tell him not to worry and try to calm him, but it really didn't matter what I did.
He was inconsolable.
Then I read somewhere that that's the worst thing you can do, because you're reinforcing the idea that trembling and being afraid of a storm is what you reward.
What we should do is reinforce behavior that is calm in the presence of storms or other loud noises.
So the best thing you can do is let him tremble, let him find a safe place, maybe under a table or in his crate, and talk softly; but don't pick him up, don't cuddle, don't protect.
Just act like everything is OK, and go about your day (or night).
Another thing you can do is to get a recording of a storm and play it softly while you're playing with your dog so that she'll get used to the sound.
Give treats every time there's a thunder clap if your dog continues to play or shows signs of coping rather than trembling or running.
The bed is off limits to Sammy now.
Time after time, I would gently put him back on the floor and pat him and tell him it's OK, and then leave him alone to deal with it on the floor.
He doesn't even try to jump on the bed anymore.
He usually doesn't even wake me up.
I just find him sleeping next to my bed the next morning.
I have to admit, he has awakened me a couple of times trying to get INSIDE my night stand.
For some reason he thinks there's room for him right behind my books.
Of course, there's not, but a couple of times I awoke to him shuffling through the books and papers trying to get in there where it looked safer.
But that was a couple of years ago.
He's gotten a lot better since then.
He still gets scared, but he's dealing with it much better now.