Sudden thunderstorm phobia?
Within the last few months Jack (who is 3 and a half) has become fearful of thunderstorms. He starts getting anxious now when it starts raining. The other night I was kept up because he was panting, shaking and right on top of me once the storm started. Granted, it was a bad storm and we we did have tornado warnings and flooding but I eventually put him in his crate where he stayed quiet until morning. I have never seen him that bad before. This is a dog who sleeps through fireworks (well, who knows this year I guess).
But I'm worried. Within the last few months he has developed an irrational fear of strange men and loud noises. I'll have to talk to my parents further to see if they could be related? (I do know he "attacked" a man on the street and the man kicked him several times, but I'm not 100% sure his fear of men is linked to that). My once stable, bombproof dog is slowly loosing it.
So what I'm wondering, with your experience, if you have a dog who has thunderstorm phobias (or others) has the fear always been present, did something happen to give a rational explantion of the phobia or did it occur spontaneously?
A couple Jackie Loo pictures for good measure ;)
On the lookout [for minibears]
http://www.zoto.com/kangashrew13/img...1f2643b841.jpg
Grass Eating Monster
http://www.zoto.com/kangashrew13/img...3124c6a66f.jpg
"Fishing" is his new favorite hobby
http://www.zoto.com/kangashrew13/img...df13c1f30e.jpg
http://www.zoto.com/kangashrew13/img...2414569240.jpg
http://www.zoto.com/kangashrew13/img...2ac3260e2a.jpg
That's all I'll bore you with for now.
Thanks for any insight into his [many] issues!