Thunderstorm phobia affects millions of dogs and causes severe distress during every storm event, with a combination of environmental management and behavioral treatment offering meaningful welfare improvement.
Thunderstorm phobia causes acute severe distress during every storm event, with affected dogs experiencing panic, attempting escape, and injuring themselves. The frequency of storms in many climates means affected dogs have multiple severe welfare events each year for potentially their entire lives. Multisensory approaches that address all storm sensory components are more effective than sound-only interventions. Pre-event medication provides acute welfare protection when storms are foreseeable. Long-term behavioral modification through desensitization reduces the chronic welfare burden for dogs with this unfortunately common phobia.