From Panic to Peace: Managing Your Dog’s Noise Phobia

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you. It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence.

Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice.

You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would

not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, a podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence, not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But that is why I'm joined by a man who is A dog trainer and an experienced one at that. Max O'Neill from Down Under Dog Trainer. And Max, we had a question on our Facebook page. Join it right now, everybody. It's called the Dog People Podcast. It's where you can smash us with your questions. This one came in a little while ago, but I thought we'd, we'd have a chat about it because I'm sure it's one that lots of people deal with. Debbie Franklin asked us, what is the best thing to do during a thunderstorm if your dog is frightened?

Cool. Thanks for your question, Debbie. So yeah, this is a really tough one to deal with. Storm phobia or thunder phobia.

Fireworks as well. Fireworks. Similar thing.

So, we'll talk about both the fireworks and the thunderstorm today. We'll kind of wrap it into one topic. So, in terms of what you can do in the moment, there's a couple of things you can do in the moment, and there's a couple of things you can do leading up to the storm, because we generally have a bit of warning that they are coming depending on where you live. So, in terms of things you can do in the moment, number one thing is reduce the exposure to the trigger. So, if your dog is freaked out by thunderstorms, Let's talk about all the different senses that your dogs experience in a thunderstorm, and let's look at how can we can reduce the exposure level of those senses. So, what can your dog see? Lots of lightning and flashes. Cool. Let's draw the blinds, shut the curtains, reduce that number one. Your dog can also hear a whole lot of thunder and sounds and light and all this sort of stuff. So, let's put the TV on, put music on. We'll try and mask it a little bit. Okay. Your dog can also experience and feel the air pressure. And this is one of those things where when people talk about, oh, I'm just going to put some sounds on and train out the thunder phobia, like it— the storm phobia— like it works to a degree, but there's so much about an actual storm that is different.

Yeah. That's a bit tough.

So sometimes, again, just— you're probably gonna have your windows shut anyway during the storm, but shutting the windows and putting on a, you know, fan and aircon, just getting that air moving, just circulating, just so it doesn't feel so like heavy and dense like it quite often can during a storm. And just— and well as that, keeping the windows closed, because your dogs can also smell storms. Quite often you'll see dogs who are storm phobic will go and hide an hour or 2 before it hits because they can smell and experience that change in temperature, that smell of the rain and everything coming like that. So number one thing you can do in the moment is reduce the exposure level. And then number 2, we want to try and preoccupy our dogs. So this is where, again, we always are chatting about it's so important to have a dog with decent drives, because if a dog doesn't care about food or toys or anything like that, it's pretty hard to distract them. But if you've got a dog who's pretty busy, pretty keen and pretty drivey and is like, hey, I care lots about different things, they're quite easy to distract.

Yeah.

And then they're quite easy to convince that the storm's not so bad. For example, when we had Nelson as a puppy, every single time there was thunder and lightning going on, it'd be out in the backyard playing. Okay. Not waving around like a metal rake over my head or anything like that. But, you know, playing it safe, but still just going out there and doing stuff or When the storm had hit, that's when we'd start to hide his food, make a treasure hunt, and just things like that. So, in the moment, we want to try and make it fun and reduce the exposure level. If your dog does have a pretty serious response where they do pose a risk to themselves or others, I have some dogs who'll hide under a bed and will, you know, growl at you or try and bite you if you get them out. I've had other dogs who've jumped through plate glass windows. I've had other dogs who've jumped the fence and escaped, or I've had other dogs who have done self-mutilation. I've had other dogs who have attacked the other dog if the other dog gets near them. So if your dog does pose a, you know, a pretty severe risk and we think, you know, basic management strategies, you know, don't really cover this dog and their behaviour presentation is outside the scope of that, then it is worth consulting with a vet. I think that's when it's worth seeing, hey, we need some maybe short and fast-acting medication to really help reduce this. So I can't obviously make any, um, advice or recommendations around medication. It's not my area of expertise, but I am saying it's a It is worthwhile consulting with your vet to chat about that. In terms of things you can do in the lead-up, if you know a storm's coming, the best thing you can do is crazily fatigue your dog that day. Okay. And again, if we talk about enrichment, we talk about your dog's 3 batteries, their physical battery, their mental battery, their genetic battery. In other words, physical exercise, mental stimulation, and then breed-specific enrichment and fulfilment is giving your dog a really strong and double dose of that during the day. can really help. It's the same reason why people, you know, will take sleeping pills or a little drink before, you know, a flight. They can try and sleep through it. It'll pass by, make it a bit easier. The same for our dog. If our dog's mind's a bit racy and they're full of energy, they've got a lot more energy to pace, pant, and do all this sort of stuff. Or if you can get a lot of that out of them, we can help them sleep through a lot of it. It's going to make things a bit easier. So that's what you can do in the moment. That's what you can do leading up to it. And then in terms of later on in prevention, like I said, you can do some level of storm recreation. You know, in our puppy school, we flick the lights on and off and we, you know, get all the fans going and all this wind and stuff. And we get the thunderstorm. We try and make it as close as possible, but it's never enough for the real deal.

So you say, yeah, in some respects you may never be able to completely have a calm dog around it, but you could do a lot to try and reduce their stress and reaction.

It's tough. Success rate for this sort of thing is, is not always 100%. I mean, it's not for anything, but It can be a tough one because you can do all the simulation reps and you, you know, I get people go, oh my God, he's been amazing during all the thunderstorm sounds, but then the real deal is the real deal.

Yeah,

your dog knows the difference. So

really, I mean, the house can shake and you've got the rumbling and you can't— those are the things you said you can't recreate.

Yeah, exactly. So unless you've got someone at the house backing the four-wheel drive into the house, kind of shaking it, like, it is tough to recreate.

Yeah.

And, um, so it's quite often the only time you can actually get worthwhile reps into practice with is the real deal. And then this can be tough because this might come when you're not home, this might come when you're not prepared, this might come and even when you'd reduce exposure level, it's just still too high and still above what your dog is comfortable with. But it can be a tough one, but it also can be done. Like I said, medication can really help your dog feel differently in the moment. And if they feel and perceive the storm differently, over time, they can start to deal with it without it. Or if you do all these things we just spoke about, reduce the exposure level and make it fun and try and distract them, they might actually go, that wasn't so bad. And then the next one, they feel a little bit better, a little bit better, and on they go. So there is lots you can do. Um, there's also things you can look at, you know, things like Adaptal and Thunder Jackets and this and that. And I kind of have mixed results with them, you know, that they are something I'll, you know, not strongly recommend to my client, but there are things that I'll mention and go, hey, look, you can try this. Uh, Adaptil claims to have a 70% efficacy rate, so apparently in 70% of dogs they'll see a pretty positive result. That really hasn't been my experience, but I have had some dogs where it works amazingly. I've had other dogs where it does absolutely nothing. Same with Thunder Jackets. I've had some dogs who respond really well to a Thunder Jacket, but it was some. I'd find that like the 90% of people who I know who have tried them have said that like they had no experience, you know, no benefit whatsoever. So It's tough. Best thing you can do is reduce exposure, make it fun, and then try and be prepared by giving them a whole heap of enrichment and exercise.

There you go. I hope that helps. Again, as always, any questions like that or anything else, make sure you jump on the Facebook page, The Dog People Podcast, and Instagram as well. Hit us up and we will get to your question at some point. The Dog People Podcast is a mashed

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