Dr Liesel van der Merwe is a small animal medicine specialist. Send her your questions: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Dr Liesel van der Merwe

The rain we are receiving is lovely but it does come with some disadvantages for our pets. Firstly, being on the Highveld our rain often comes with thunderstorms. Many of our pets, especially dogs, experience thunderstorm and noise anxiety, varying from mild (hiding under or behind furniture) to severe (trying to escape the noise, causing injury to themselves and damage to property). One of the major issues is that most of us are not at home when storms occur.

Low-key
Low-key interventions include distracting your dog with food or a game, thus shifting their focus away from the noise. It is also important that you do not hype up this anxiety by either babying your dog or raising your voice if they irritate you or damage things. Remain calm and steady, as this will make the event less “scary” for the dog and you don’t amplify the anxiety with your behaviour.

Try to muffle some of the sounds of the rain and thunder by playing music or putting on the TV. Provide a safe, small, dark, noise-protected den-like space. Those whose aim is to flee, will need to be placed into the den. Anything can be used, for example: cover a travel crate with sound-absorbing blankets. Small rooms are also fine, but make sure that it is a furnished room – not the bathroom – as sound is amplified with the tiled walls and there is no place to hide.

The use of bespoke ThunderShirts or wrapping your dog (see demos online) works by applying gentle, constant pressure to your dog’s body, which is believed to release calming hormones such as endorphins or oxytocin that can lower heart rate and reduce stress-related behaviours.

There are some diets which contain anxiety suppressing additives, which can help as a nutritional supplement that decreases the level of general anxiety. Unfortunately the dogs have to be less than 14 kg for the amount of the supplement (casein) taken in through the food to be effective, and many dogs with phobias are larger dogs.

If these low-key interventions are insufficient then medication can be used and possibly very well-managed desensitization, once medication is deemed to be effective (it often takes up to six weeks and may need dose adjustments). Much of the medication used is antidepressants and anxiolytics from the human range. 

A dog which has severe thunderstorm phobia can cause much trauma to itself and have a profoundly negative effect on its owners. Sometimes, if the patient cannot be effectively managed, decisions regarding quality of life, for the pet and the family, may need to be made. Mental conditions, not only physical ailments, may cause a severe decrease in quality of life. 

Cats
Then we have cats and wet grass. Cats don’t like wet grass and digging in mud to go to the toilet. Holding in their urine can cause the development of a stress form of cystitis as well as sometimes increased crystallisation in the urine and the development of stones. I advise that most people keep a cat litter box in the garage, so that there is somewhere dry to “go” during prolonged rainy periods.

And lastly, ticks. Good rains will give us a good crop of ticks. Make sure your dogs are well-managed against ticks. There are many options to suit all pockets. The less costly ones may require more frequent application, but they are effective. In Gauteng we luckily do not have any tick-borne diseases in cats, but tick bite fever (Ehrlichiosis) and biliary fever (babesia) occur throughout South Africa.