Lively Dog Blog

This year in New England, I feel like I’m under siege by summer. My dog Fergus, is a nervous wreck. He’s lived five years without being afraid of thunderstorms, but this year, we’ve had one every other day . All summer. Sometimes every day.

He goes from room to room with every thunderclap, like he’s thinking, “Damn, it’s in this room, too, I’ll try the kitchen. Nope, here, too, I’ll try the bathtub.”

It may have something to do with his ear being extra sensitive. I say this only because he has another sudden-onset phobia: he won’t go outside. As soon as he goes out, his tail sneaks below his belly, his ears go down and he pulls like a sled dog to get back inside. Panic, is how one friend described it.

This is the dog that never smiles in the house… he’s only happy outside. Now I can’t get him to go out to go potty. It was John that figured it out. He got Fergus into the backyard, and he was okay at first. Then he’d dive under a table and tremble. He’d come out for awhile, then dive under and tremble. John linked it to the off-and-on singing of the cicadas. You know, these guys:

They make an infernal racket sounding like this:

Cidaca M. cassini making my life hard

I remember last year it bugged him, but not like this. Meanwhile, I can only get my dog to do his business when it rains (provided there is no thunder), or in the early morning before they start singing. Reiki, massage, T-touch help a bit with the thunder fear but not with the cicadas. I began to think it may have more to do with ear pain than fear.

In the end, it came to this: aviation ear muffs for my dog. I ordered a pair of Mutt Muffs for Fergus. The other dogs make fun of him, but now he will go outside.

His tail stays up; he has a happy trot. He does his business. I can’t let him run off leash, because he can’t hear my call. Still, a thousand times better. I was starting to worry about his kidneys.

I use them, too, during thunderstorms (on Fergus. They’re too small for me.). Some dogs hate more than the noise; they sense the pressure changes or the static in the air. Ferg seems to only react to the noise so far, so I thought it was worth a try. It helps, a little. The quieter claps he can’t hear at all (no jump in his muscles); the louder ones must sound not so loud. He’ll lay in bed with me until the really big ones come. I would take a picture of him in his Mutt Muffs for you, but this storm is pretty bad. Fergus is in the closet. Sigh.

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