We live in an odd little corner of the world, at least weather-wise. It can be raining cats and dogs (Louie considers this phrase pure hokum) a mile or two in any or every direction, and we may see a few drops of rain in our neighborhood. Even if we aren’t getting much rain, we still hear thunder and see the lightning flashes if a thunderstorm is in the area and that is any given day in Cackalacky in the summer. We’ve had a few big storms in the past couple of weeks. So, Louie has been wearing his Thundershirt often enough for us to give it an official rating of 3.75 paws up!

Seriously people, it does NOT rain “cats and dogs”!

The Thundershirt does seem to calm him. Last week there was a storm with lots of thunder and he was fine curled up next to me on the couch. He was underfoot more than usual if I had to get up for something, but he wasn’t a basket case. Yesterday was one of those days when I drove home from work, I ran into a nice downpour about two miles from the house, but it didn’t look like a drop had fallen on our street. I put Louie in his Thundershirt and after about an hour, it did start to rain here at the house. It wasn’t all that heavy, but I was doing some work and the house was quiet so all we could hear was the rain. Even though he was next to me on the couch, he trembled like the end of the world was near.

Not exactly a “profile in courage”

After a few minutes of serious spasms, I made him get up and gave him a cookie. A little nosh always makes things better, right? I also turned on the television so it would drown out the rain – the pun is purely serendipitous — and when we settled back on the couch, Louie was fine. I do recommend the Thundershirt if you have the extra $40 to spare. With Louie it isn’t 100% effective, but it’s close enough, so I feel it was worth it.

It hasn’t been all bad weather as you can see from the picture below. Louie enjoyed a nice butcher bone that was about half the size of him! I think he forgot about it, because I haven’t seen him with it in the past few days and I don’t think he’s eaten it all yet. Where it turns up may be the subject of a future post 😉

Louie enjoying a bone!

“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” ~ Samuel Butler