Thunder Dog, Ho!

Maaco the Thunder Dog

Thunder storms. All week long, wet and wild, they unfurled across the states. They are wrecking havoc in our dog's life. They are wrecking havoc in our life. You see, we have a dog that is scared by thunder and lightning. TERRIFIED is a better word. After hours of storms each day, he is living on the edge, just one loud slam of a car door or backfire away from a trip to Crazy Town. And guess what? He's taking us with him. He spends most of the end of the day with ears pricked, edgy and on guard, for any sound of thunder or sight of a shank of light. He hasn't had a carefree, uninterrupted snooze in days.


We have three dogs--a white one, a black one, and a black and white one. It is interesting how they each react to the ripping, sizzling storms. B.B., the white one, could care less about all the booming and percussion. Yin, the black and white dog, gets clingy, needy and anxiously paces. Then there's Maaco. He's always in a class by himself. A Shar-Pei and Lab cross breed, he has anxiety issues in general and separation anxiety in specific. When the thunder and lightning start throwing tantrums, he begins panting and trembling. His eyes get large, round and glassy. He drools uncontrollably and the corners of his mouth pull back with stress. He won't eat. He can't eat. Which says a lot because this dog lives for food. He turns into a black, fuzzy mass of quivering jello.

On Friday night, the storm, directly over our house, streams fire bolts down from the heavens. Thunder cracks our world. Maaco heads for cover, running under the computer desk for safety. With legs and paws entangled in cords and wires, he continues his headlong assault into the deepest angle of the corner. Pushing to go beyond the wall. Scratching to go through the floor. With a huge show of strength, we drag him, clawing, out from under the desk barely keeping the computer tower and connections intact. Once we had him out, we leashed him and kept him close. If he were outside, he would rip boards off the fence, run blindly for miles, and we might see him in a couple of days, if ever. It has happened before.

He's still frantic. We take him to his safe place in our bedroom, a small space between the wall and the bed. The thunder fires off a barrage of detonations. Panicked, he tries to burrow under a night stand that is only two inches off the ground. Knocking the nightstand over, he breaks the lamp and pulls the phone down on to the floor. It is not a fun night. None of us get much sleep until the storm abates early in the morning. If we had known the storm was going to be this bad, we would have given him tranquilizers. My sympathetic vet has deemed him fit for his own prescription. And, although I don't like the idea of drugging two-leggeds or four-leggeds, there is a time and place for everything. I wonder, what is the DSM code, from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, for Crazy Freakin' Dog?


He truly believes he is in mortal danger. That death is imminent. I can't tell him he is wrong as I know, for a fact, that lighting can and will kill. I have read it and seen it. But how do dogs know this? Why are some dogs terrified and others unaffected? Are the dogs that have intense fear descendants of a lineage that existed in a region where thunder and lighting occurred regularly? Were so many of their far removed, ancient, Wolverine ancestors killed that their DNA was coded with this knowledge? Does the sound of thunder and flash of light signal their primitive, limbic brain to send the message of flight for life? Do the unaffected canines come from regions without such danger? Or is just a personality disorder? I guess it could be, but the fear seems so deeply ingrained that maybe there is a real and practical purpose for its existence.

Thor, God of Thunder

Photo: Marvel Comics

I don't have any answers. All I know is that I am hoping that Thor, God of Thunder, has tired of riding the heavens in his chariot and smashing the heads of giants with his mighty, lighting producing hammer, Mjollnir. In the words of Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets, "Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here."