How is a dog supposed to know that?
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…very afraid of … the beeping from my computer’s UPS…
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There is something specific to the tone of my UPS’ beeps. The phones beep, the microwave beeps, the range beeps, seemingly the only thing here that doesn’t beep now and then is the Victrola. Our retriever mix pays no attention to any of it, but the moment a UPS makes noise, she’s in a panic.
That’s true. We have two dogs at the moment. The smaller one is afraid of some noises – skateboards, garbage trucks banging, and (I kid you not) Zulu war chants on TV (nothing else on TV scares her, although a lot of TV noises get her attention). But she is utterly unafraid of thunder.
Our larger dog, Sadie, doesn’t pay any attention to the TV, but is clearly afraid of thunder and fireworks. She comes by it honestly, however; X-rays have revealed at least 3 shotgun pellets still lodged in her body (there may be more in areas we did not have occasion to x-ray).
I think the sneeze thing is perceived by some dogs as a sharp “snarf” or correction sound made by a pack leader, so they flinch submissively and try to figure out what it is you’re correcting. Our smaller dog has flattened herself down for years when we sneeze, but bot when some stranger does. She seems to be finally getting over it just in the last few weeks – she barely hunches now, but anxiously searches our faces for instruction.
It’s not pseudoscience, it’s just marketing.
OK, OK, it’s surely slick marketing, but pseudoscience is being used to justify the product. What’s next, magnetic collars?
It may work due to the placebo effect on the owners. They are less worried about the dog being worried and so do not show as much (sometimes subconscious) worrying when there are storms, which the dogs pick up on normally. Thus the dog sees that the owner is more calm (because they’re not as worried about the dog being afraid) and thus the dog is not afraid.
Here is the sciencethat Thundershirt uses to justify it’s product. It all looks reasonable to me, just not conclusive, and the paper doesn’t claim it is. The part you’re complaining about is just the marketing, which everyone should know will be misleading. The distinction may not be important to you, but it is there.
many animals find a sense of security is confined spaces; if you feel surrounding objects then nothing can attack you from that direction.
animals that are sick might go into confined spaces because they know they can fight or run from an attacker because of their weakness.
My border collie mix is scared by storms whether they contain thunder or not. Any rain, or impending rain, causes her to start shivering, panting, and looking for a small space to hide. It seems to correlate most with decreasing barometric pressure. She’s also scared by loud noises (fireworks, cars backfiring, motorcycles), but that doesn’t cause the shivering and panting, just running away from the noise.
I have a thundershirt for her, and it definitely helps. I see an immediate change in her behavior when I put it on her, especially if we are in the midst of a storm. A tight t-shirt has the same effect. I assume it’s like squeeze chutes for livestock. However it works, it’s better than drugging her.
I have 7 Jacks and 2 of them are afraid of thunder. Two of them ignore it completely and 3 of them charge outside to bark back at it. Same reaction to fireworks. All strange dog barking is met with return barking by all 7.
Cats and dogs hear a good deal higher frequencies than we do, and they will get upset by loud, but inaudible to us, sound. Ages ago, before the advent of infra-red remote controls, some TV remotes were ultrasonic. These were known to send pets almost psychotic. The random very loud (to them) noises were extremely distressing.
I notice my cats really don’t like some noises, one they hate is a squeaking door hinge. I suspect (and really should measure) that there is a lot of ultrasonic energy in it. Same for vacuum cleaners.
However none of that helps with storms. The atmospheric and simple scale effects mean that there is scant high frequency energy in a thunderstorm (unless you are so close you really have other much more serious problems to worry about). Dogs and cats have worse low frequency response than humans, so they don’t hear the thunder go as deep as we do. They have similar damping mechanisms for loud sounds as we do. So one is left with psychological rather than physical reasons for such dislike of thunderstorms.
This is our guess why it works.
Well, she does look like a walking giant burrito with it on. In fact, we call it her tortilla.
I don’t think so. My wife is pretty anxious during storms, but I’m relaxed. We’ve experimented with leaving the tortilla off during a storm and there is a noticeable difference in poochie’s anxiety level.
My childhood dog was inconsolable during storms until he went deaf in his old age. Barometric pressure didn’t play a factor for him at least, just the BOOMs.
You are aware that “anxiety level” is a highly subjective criterion? That wishful thinking can lead to all kinds of biases? That only double-blind testing has any validity for such matters? That no reasonable agent has been proposed that would definitively account for a “calming effect”? That placebos are well-known to cause similar claims? That we are in GQ, where it is customary to require proof when making questionable statements?
Hey, what happens if you take the “tortilla” off the dog and put it on your wife? 
Did you have a question to ask, or do you want to make a speech?
There’s just the 2 of us here (me and her) so I guess she always knows the source!
Our old border collie mix was definitely freaked out by loud noises. Around here fireworks are more frequent than thunderstorms. He’d bark hysterically, not hide.He was always pretty high strung. He barked at airplanes overhead also.
Our retired guide dog breeder has not been at all, but part of her training was walking past noisy things without reacting. She’s 8 1/2 now, and on July 4 she did go under my desk and put her head in my lap, which is more of a reaction than she ever showed before. So it depends on the dog.
Did you get her straight from working, or was she debriefed somewhere?
I knew a woman who had her about to retire and new guides at the same time. I stayed with the old dog while she took the new one to the store. God, that dog was frantic. 
I think it’s accepted that dogs and other animals can anticipate various weather changes and environmental phenomena (earthquakes, etc). A combination of their superior hearing, and an ability to sense things humans don’t usually, like barometric pressure changes.
But the reactions of individual animals to thunderstorms varies a lot. I’ve known dogs with a pathological fear of thunder, some that were a bit uncomfortable, and also plenty that don’t appear to notice.
My dog doesn’t give a shit about thunder or fireworks, and he’s been exposed to plenty. Occasionally, an unexpected extra-loud or nearby blast has made him jump, but he shows no evidence of any anxiety either before or during a storm, or when people are setting off fireworks, or anything else is making loud, unpredictable noises.
I think the amount of fear that the humans a dog lives with have about storms, has a big effect on a dog’s perception of it being a dangerous situation. Personally, I love thunderstorms and feel relaxed to exhilarated when one is going on.
Thank you for that mental image - dogs barking back at thunder! Love it!