When Beth Styrbicki came home from work earlier this month, she was shocked at what she found: Wood splinters were strewn across the floor, and a door had been torn to pieces, its skeletal structure exposed.
"At first I thought somebody had broken into the house. But where we live, we just don't have crime," Styrbicki said.
Indeed, it was an inside job, carried out by Louie, aka Sweet Louie, Styrbicki's 90-pound golden lab retriever.
Spooked by lightning, thunder and heavy rain, Louie had aimed his anxious bulk at Styrbicki's office door in a severe episode of what pet behaviorists call thunderstorm phobia.
When storms strike, dogs with the phobia can tremble and try to crawl into a tight space, pace or pant, or even jump through a window or doors in attempt to get close to their owners.
It's a common phenomenon across the Midwest, given the frequency of thunderstorms that roll across the region each summer. Though this season hasn't bought a noticeable increase in reports of rampaging dogs, requests for training or storm-phobic dogs being given up for adoption, "a lot of people will probably be glad when storm season is over," said Paula Zukoff, behavior and training manager for the Animal Humane Society.
Root of the problem
It's not entirely clear why some dogs have the phobia and others don't. The noise of thunder and flashes of lighting are obvious triggers. But many dogs seem to react instead to changes in atmospheric pressure or static electricity in the air, said Linda Brodzik, a Twin Cities dog behavior specialist. Some will even curl themselves around a toilet, pipe or in a bathtub in an apparent attempt to ground themselves as storms approach, she said.
