I first heard of the Thundershirt from a friend of mine. I was telling him a story about how Zoe, our Weimaraner, likes to hide in the bathtub during thunderstorms. He mentioned the Thundershirt as a product he had seen that was supposed to relax and calm dogs that were scared of thunder. A few months later, we met with a Thundershirt rep while at Global Pet Expo. We started talking about the Thundershirt, and how it cold help pets with all types of anxiety including travel anxiety. With that thought in mind we put together this Thundershirt Review to see how well it worked .
I must admit when I first heard of, and saw, the Thundershirt I was pretty skeptical. I mean, how is a shirt supposed to calm a dog down? Well it turns out there’s quite a bit of science behind it. Dogs, being den animals, like to feel cozy when under stress. Think about a dog in the wild, if it was nervous or stressed out from a storm, it would crawl into it’s den and stay there until the storm passed over. Well the Thundershirt takes that same concept of cozy pressure and applies it with their shirt. The question is, does it work? I would try anything to not have to look at this face again.
When I first unpacked the shirt, I read through all the information. It looked simple enough. The shirt basically just drapes over your dogs back, and then has velcro straps to tie around her chest and ribcage. Tightening or loosening the shirt will then add the appropriate amount of pressure to relax your pet.
I pulled it out of the box and put it on Zoe…. and nothing happened. I’m not sure what I was expecting, considering she was not stressed or anxious about anything at the moment, but she immediately went and took a nap. I figured that was a good sign, at least this thing is comfy.
Within the next couple of days, we planned on taking a short trip in the car to visit a friend, who lived about an hour away. I wanted to test the idea of the Thundershirt helping with travel anxiety, but I had a problem. Zoe’s a professional car traveler. She’s covered over 70K miles in cars, and most of it’s was sleeping. I tried it anyway. I put her in the shirt and got her in the back of the car. Normally she takes 5-10 minutes to settle down for a long ride. This time, she sat for about 2 minutes and was sleeping in 5. I wasn’t 100% sold yet, but things were looking promising.
While Zoe isn’t too nervous when it comes to travel, she is terrified of thunder and fireworks. I knew this would be the big test. So we waited. It’s amazing how long you have to wait for a thunderstorm when you want one to come by. After a few weeks, we has a nice big storm come rolling through. Sure enough, Zoe was trying to make her way into the bathroom to hide. We put the shirt on her, and sat with her in her bed for about two minutes. She stopped shaking almost immediately, and her heart rate and panting slowed measurably in about two minutes. She still looked nervous, but she wasn’t frantic any longer. We had another big storm come through as I was working on this review. Once again, we put the shirt on and she settled down within just a couple of minutes. The Thundershirt is said to work in about 80% of dogs it’s tested on, well you can count Zoe as one of their happy customers. The only downside? The look she gives me when I try to take it off of her :-)
If you are having trouble with dog anxiety while ar home, or traveling, I highly recommend you purchase one now. It’s a 100% natural and healthy way to help your dog cope with any kind of stress. Oh, I almost left the best part out, Thundershirt carries a 100% money back guarantee if you are not happy with the product.
If your dog has any kind of anxiety issues you should click here now and order a Thundershirt today.
Glad it worked for you and Zoe! It failed miserably for Riley and, unfortunately, I wasn’t 100% convinced that it didn’t work until after the window of time for the money-back guarantee passed. I ended up giving it away to a rescue group. I guess Riley was in the 20% it didn’t work for!
I have found a “calming” treat by Pet Naturals of Vermont that helps a lot with the thunderstorm/fireworks anxiety, but she still ends up in our tiny downstairs half-bathroom shaking, panting, and trying to dig her way through the linoleum floor to China…haha! I’ve just come to accept it as one of her quirks.
hahaha great shirt, she actually looks great in it :)
Our dog didn’t develop thunder anxiety until he was 5 years old. I have no idea why it suddenly started bothering him. It is very traumatic for both of us because I can’t comfort him. He tries to get behind the toilet in the bathroom, but is still utterly miserable. I was hoping Thundershirt would be the answer. Unfortunately, he is in the 20% for whom it doesn’t work. However, it’s a nice coat and he needed one, so at least we can still use it.