My dog is scared of the wind!

[Pinkbutterfly79]

Hi, our 6 year old dog has recently became really frightened of the wind at night, she is up all night pacing around the house and nothing we seem to do will settle her.

She has always slept happily in the kitchen in her bed - occasionally coming upstairs but then goes back to her bed after a few minutes. For the last six weeks she has been really unsettled and just walks round the house crying all night. We have tried letting her out into the garden, leaving the radio on low and a light on in the kitchen, bringing her bed upstairs onto the landing, having her bed in our room next to our bed even sitting downstairs in the living room with her all night but nothing seems to settle her and we obviously can not control the wind at night.

We took her to the vets to make sure everything was ok health wise and he said she was fine and suggested trying some medication to settle her at night (we tried this and it had no effect on her at all!)

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas of what else we can try, she is fine in the day, even when she is home alone (I put ds’ video baby monitor in the kitchen when I went to work to see if she was ok )

[RedRed9]

What medication did you try?

I’d be giving the herbal/holistic route a really good try. ie try a calming remedy for a prolonged period and document the effects well (don’t just skip on to something new). Some calming sprays/drops take a while to take effect.

Did anything happen six weeks ago? A change in your working patterns, a holiday, anything?

[Pinkbutterfly79]

I’m not sure what it was, it was from the vet but it’s at home and I’m at work. It was supposed to be a sedative that would work quickly and only last over night.
We tried a calming spray around bonfire night when she was a little unsettled and it seemed to work then but not now although we are still using it incase it takes a while to work. I will have a look into the drops thank you.

The vet said it could be becoming behavioural and we might need to just be firm with her to stay in her bed at night time but it doesn’t seem right to discipline her when she is obviously distressed.

Nothing major has happened to unsettle her, I have had some time off work but that started a few months before she began behaving like this and didn’t really disrupt her as I only work part time so was only home for a couple of extra hours a day.

[Pinkbutterfly79]

After a few good nights with her sleeping downstairs in her bed (that I sprayed with a calming spray for dogs) with the radio playing relaxing music and the lights left on low - last night was a disaster with the wind blowing and rain she was up and down the stairs all night, I brought her into our bedroom and shut the door but she scratched the door trying to get out and was stressed out all night