The Thundershirt

I'll be honest, when we first decided to get the

Thundershirt

for Showlow I was a bit skeptical.

I was thinking how could a shirt help with her separation anxiety?

But we bought it anyways and hoped for the best.

John had seen an advertisement for it

I think in a dog magazine, I don't remember which one though.

It's supposed to help by being a constant

pressure on the dog. So it's tight but not too tight.

The pressure is supposed to creat a calming affect in

anxious/stressful situations.

At first I didn't notice much of a difference.

When we left the house without her and baby, she chewed on things.

EVERTHING.

Including our mattress and sometimes even the blankets/sheets/their dog bed.

So we tried to a.) not leave the house together as much so someone could be home with Show

& b.) take her with us every chance we get.

Oh and c.) pick up ALL the pillows/blankets/dog beds/sheets before we left

which as you can imagine is a pain and very time consuming when you

need to run out of the door to work, school or an appointment.

So anyways, after Shows accident where she somehow

broke and jumped through a window

in our bedroom a few weeks ago

she COULD NOT be left 

alone at all since her paws

were healing from being

very badly cut up.

(P.S. she wasn't wearing the thundershirt when this happened)

We were very strict with someone

being home

with her/

John taking her to work with him/

her going with us everywhere we went.

Not once did we leave her unattended..

We did consider a crate, but we have

tried that before and it just does not work

well for her.

She broke the last crate we put her in

and I was afraid she would hurt

herself trying to get out of it again.

but now that she is mostly healed and acting

like nothing ever happened we decided to try

to leave her alone with Baby again.

Baby

[[Baby has NEVER had an issue with

being left alone and sometimes I think she prefers it that way ;)

but we'll save that story for another post.]]

This time we picked up anything and everything

we thought she might get into

except her toys and dog pillows.

Then we strapped her in her Thundershirt

and left. I won't even go

into the amount of anxiety we were

feeling at first.

We went to Ikea, Whole Foods and then got

dinner, but we go it to go since we

were nervous about what we were going to come home to.

(half eaten sofa, broken table, broken windows, toys all eaten,

shoes all eaten, Showlow hurt again???)

I was imagining the worst.

However, we walked in the house

and Baby was laying on the sofa

 (yes our dogs are allowed on the furniture)

and Showlow was laying on her dog pillow

with her toys.



Show's little 'nook' and the toys we left out for her.

John walked all around the house in disbelief

(which caused Showlow to

get a little nervous cause she wasn't sure what

we were looking for and what our reaction

was going to be when we found it).

But we didn't find it.

She had clearly played with every single toy

we left out for her, but she did not tear up anything.

Not even her toys.

I think it took some time, but since then when

she has the shirt on I deifnitely notice a difference in her

anxiety. It's definitely not as bad as it once was.

We stayed gone for 2 hours that day and we'll

gradually increase it little by little, but I don't expect

the couch to be torn apart anymore :)

She is pooped.

 So all in all I do recommend the Thundershirt

and even though we know that

it's not going to work

for every dog and every situation,

but I think it did help us & Showlow.

They are $39.95 and usually you can catch them

during a no shipping cost deal. Hope it helps

you as much if not more than us! :)