A short veterinary YouTube video (Dr. Lera Clone, Heron Lakes Animal Hospital) about recognizing thunderstorm anxiety in dogs and non-pharmaceutical management options. Dr. Clone names signs (panting, pacing, crying, scratching, chewing), recommends natural interventions — CBD oil, Thundershirts, Adaptil collars, and DAP plugins — demonstrates how to fit a Thundershirt, and advises not to pet or pick up anxious dogs to avoid reinforcing the behavior.
Good morning, guys. My name is Dr. Lara here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital, and I'm here today with Bella and. Correct. Correct. Mom's in the corner over there. And so Bella was coming in for her annual exam, and we talked about a couple of different things. Dental tartar and also thunderstorm anxiety. And so there are a number of different things that can be done for thunderstorm anxiety. Thunderstorm anxiety is if your dog is panting, pacing, crying, scratching on things, chewing on things. You can look. Some of the natural things you can look at are CBD oil. You can look at something called the thundershirt. It's kind of like an acupressure thing. You can also look at doing something called a dog appazing pheromone. These are all natural things that you can start off with. One of the keys that I want you to know is do not. I'm going to give her back to Mom. Do not pet them or pick them up. If they are in an area, leave them alone. Because when you pick them up and pet them, you're actually reinforcing them. Okay. Good afternoon. Hey, guys. This is Dr. Lehrer here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital, and I have Val, Ginger, and Ruby helping me out today. These are my two dogs. And so I had mentioned earlier about thunderstorm anxiety and some different things, natural things that can be done for a thunderstorm. I mentioned CBD oil. I had mentioned thundershirts. I had mentioned something called an Adaptil collar. And then there's something called dap, which is dog appeasing pheromone. So this is a thundershirt. The brand Thundershirt is one of the first ones that's come out. But there are a lot of other brands as well that still exist out there. And so I'm just going to show you how this kind of works. What happens is you go ahead, you put it over the body, and then make sure if your dog has long hair on her ears, that the Velcro doesn't get caught in that. And what you'll do is you'll bring this under here, undo this, and then we're going to come over here and fasten that there. Then this is going to come over. What I was telling Val earlier was this kind of reminds me of when I'm putting on diapers on my kids. Okay. And then we'll come over here. Just put this up front so that way it's not slightly sliding. And that's pretty much it. Now what ends up happening is the pressure is put here on the chest, and so What I've been told is that there are some children who are on the spectrum where they sometimes respond to hugging. And it's supposed to be soothing for them. They're supposed to be acupressure points. And so that's the thought process behind the Thundershirts is it's supposed to have a similar effect. So just something for you guys to be aware of. If you don't necessarily want to put your dog on drugs right away, this is definitely a good option. And a lot of these companies, they have 100% guarantee. I'm not getting any sort of kicks from this particular company. It's just one of the brands that I happen to be carrying in the hospital today. This is an Adaptil collar. And again, so this particular collar, what it does is it has the pheromones of a lactating female dog. And so those are supposed to be calming for a lot of patients. I would say at least 50%. And just in case a fun fact, catnip only works in about 50% of cats. So this is about as effective as catnip. So this is something else. There is also, like I had mentioned before, something called dap, which is dog appeasing pheromone. And that's an actual plugin. You can go ahead and plug that into the wall and it'll be kind of like a Glades plug in or an air freshener or something like that. If there's a particular area or room where your dog likes to hang out and during the thunderstorms or fireworks, this would be a good idea. If you guys have any other questions about natural things or more non drug alternatives, let me know. Or if you want to know about some of the actual pharmaceuticals that can be used to help manage anxiety, we can talk about that as well. Thanks a lot for watching. Have a great day and I'll see you later.
