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Tag: fear of thunder

Thunder Phobia and the Adaptil DAP Collar

dog with thunder phobia snuggles to human

It’s been a few months since we touched on the topic of Donna’s Thunder Phobia. In the last year, we’ve tried the Thundershirt which I felt has some good effect and I’ve written about it quite a bit. And later on, we bought the Adaptil DAP Collar for her so this post is really quite long over due.

do you smell the rain

Just like the rain that we experienced in the past week after a dry spell.

dog wearing DAP collar

The Adaptil DAP (dog appeasing pheromone) Collar is as you can see in the picture above, is the nondescript, flat, grey, strip of plastic wound around Donna’s neck. The collar stays on for a month for maximum effect. Retailing at SGD$59 at our local pet supplies store, this collar that lasts only a month is not that affordable an answer for thunder phobia. For that price, it asserts that it will release pheromones that will calm the reactive dog.

Adaptil DAP collar for dog with thunder phobia
dog with thunder phobia going to toiletsigns of fear of thunder in dog

Nope, doesn’t look calm, does she?

So it’s back to the ThunderShirt and her collar over the DAP collar, the whole works. I call this her Thunder Battle Armour.

dog in thundershirt

Tense, but not quaking at least.

To be fair, our dog does go majorly over-threshold when it thunders heavily – the pee and poo anywhere, the drool, the running around and climbing to escape which leads to things in the flat being disturbed and displaced, when left unsupervised. So perhaps that collar may work with dogs with a less severe fear of thunderstorms. I said may because I wouldn’t know. But a look at the reviews on Amazon – Adaptil, D.A.P (Dog Appeasing Pheromone) Collar for Medium to Large Dogs – 27.6″ – shows that it does work for some people with dogs.

Outside of the storms, she is a very calm dog so we have no need of the collar to work any magic. We did not see a difference in Donna’s behaviour for the month that she was wearing the DAP collar. So that logically concluded for us that the collar did not have any discernible effect on Donna, and we weren’t inclined to continue with the collar into the second month.

dog under study table

This is Donna in the last two weeks, she seemed to find comfort under the study table. I have to say, this is also the more enclosed room so maybe she felt safer in here. Unfortunately, it didn’t even thunder very badly on that day. This dog has an overactive reaction to the slightest thunder after a couple of months without exposure to it. So the counter-conditioning with food restarts. And on days when I am too tired/impatient to do that the whole day when it storms, she stays quietly tense under the table (after she goes to toilet, which is always her first instinctive behaviour).

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Read: How to introduce the Thundershirt or any shirt to a dog
before you buy on Amazon

The sky has done falling, so what’s for dinner?

The world was ending yet again today. At least, you would think so looking at the panting dog in front of you.

The thunder this afternoon was louder than the mild grumbles of yesterday. Time to re-enact another session of please pee/poop on the new blue pee tray Donna and yay, let’s eat the yummy food when it thunders!

Back and forth, we danced from kitchen to crate, and sometimes the loo. Dog ate up a half can of wet food from yesterday and almost another can of Herbed Duck confit for today. Almost… because by 4.30, she refused another tablespoon of the mushy stuff and just lay on the floor like a stone statue.

Sort of like this stone statue from some time back.

She probably was too tired to walk back and forth any more after 2 hours of standing and walking around in agitated from the thunderstorm. I know my feet hurt! And maybe, she just had food right up to here. *gestures at the top of the throat*

Who knew the thunder-phobic dog had the amazing ability to recover and come by punctually at 8pm seeking dinner?


Dinner… human, it’s time for dinner… … old picture from Drool-worthy

I’m sorry, darling, but you had your fair share of food for the day. So, no dinner for you. :P


This was dinner on a better day.

Ding-Dong! Trick or Treat!

Trick
So this is the human’s minimal effort at dressing up Donna for Halloween. I’ve been walking her with that silly bow on her head for the whole week and she’s quite used to it now ;) Of course, the first day was really fun for the human who kept laughing at how silly Donna looks with a bow on her head while sniffing, peeing and pooping. But Donna got used to it after a while and so did the human. So it stopped being so funny. Haha.

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A review of Donna’s thunder phobia and how the ThunderShirt and other tools helped her

Donna has thunder phobia and one of the tools that we thought we would try with her was the ThunderShirt to manage her thunder phobia. I wrote to ThunderShirt, who so kindly arranged with their local distributor Hound Habitat to send me a sample of the shirt for trial.


Back to the storm brewing over our island over the last few weeks…

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