Dogs and Cats
Dogs frequently exhibit severe anxiety during thunderstorms; between 15 and 30 percent may be affected. Research confirms high levels of cortisol - a hormone associated with stress - in affected dogs during and after thunderstorms. Remedies include behavioral therapies such as counter-conditioning and desensitization, anti-anxiety medications, and Dog Appeasing Pheromone, a synthetic analogue of a hormone secreted by nursing canine mothers.
Studies have also shown that cats can be afraid of thunderstorms. While it is very rare, there are some unusual exceptions in which cats will hide under a table or behind a couch during a thunderstorm.
Read more about this topic: Astraphobia
Famous quotes containing the words dogs and, dogs and/or cats:
“I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.’”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“I came on a great house in the middle of the night
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through;
And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)