You’d think that the Storm Defender saga would be over but nope, there is another installment to the story. In Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2, I shared the story of how the Storm Defender seemed to prevent storms from happening in the first place. This belief became so strong that when it came time for a summer vacation, I used the Storm Defender Dog Jacket as a totem.

I did not tell my husband for fear of breaking the lucky charm that the Storm Defender totem would bring us. For some reason, like telling your birthday wish, saying it out loud might break the spell.

We had planned a week’s vacation at Cayuga Lake, one of the UFO hotspots of the Finger Lakes. We’d spent a lot of money to rent the cottage and had an 18 hour drive each way just to get there. Enjoying time in the lake itself was a big issue.

As departure day came closer, we started looking at the weather predictions for Cayuga Lake and my heart just sank when the predictions involved several days of thunderstorms. According to the weatherman, there was only one day out of the entire week that was guaranteed not to storm.

All that money, all those hours to get there, and we weren’t going to get to enjoy the lake? I was miserable. We hadn’t had a good vacation in several years. At one time we regularly booked cruises to the Caribbean but those days were long gone with the adoption of our newest dog, Sierra. I didn’t have the heart to leave her with someone as she suffered from people issues.

The best we could do was plan road trips that included the dogs, and this trip was designed to kickstart our new regime. Renting cottages at the lake was supposed to replace Caribbean cruises in a really fun, dog-friendly way.

We were taking our kayaks and snorkel gear so that we could snorkel for fossils. We were going to take the dogs kayaking and swimming. It was all about the lake and here was the weatherman predicting thunderstorms for most of the week.

NOOOO!!!!!!! As we were packing to leave, I sank into the most abject misery.

Then I remembered the Storm Defender Dog Jacket. I know it’s going to sound seriously superstitious but I remembered how effectively the arrival of the Storm Defender stopped a string of thunderstorms from appearing a few years earlier.

It had worked just like the rainmakers of old but in the opposite manner. We’d even taken it on one vacation where storms were predicted, but the rain storms never materialized and we’d had gorgeous weather.

Logically I knew that the Storm Defender did not have the power to fend off thunderstorms. But the previous coincidences were too much to overlook, and I felt so powerless in the face of the weatherman’s predictions. I had to try SOMETHING. So I packed the Storm Defender Dog Jacket in secret, not telling a soul about my anti-storm totem.

We arrived at Cayuga Lake late at night, and the next morning started with clear blue skies and a sunny day. The thunderstorms were still being predicted during the week, for at least half a day each day, so we looked for a sudden storm to blow in that afternoon.

It didn’t. Nor did a rainstorm come the next day or the next. We made it through five straight days of gorgeous weather. Blue skies and sunshine smiled down upon our much-needed vacation. We took the dogs kayaking, we snorkeled for fossils, we took the dogs swimming, and we appreciated every sunny day that came.

There wasn’t a drop of rain until the day before we left, and half of that day was allotted for packing anyway. I truly believed that my special Storm Defender totem had given us this blessing of a vacation. I didn’t tell my husband about the storm totem until we were on the long drive home. Sure enough, the moment I spoke the words and told my secret, the skies opened up and it started to rain.

The moral of the story: If you carry a totem, do not tell anyone! That dilutes the power of your totem and the protection that it offers might fail you. Keep your secrets. Therein lies the power

Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 1
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 3
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 4

Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.

Bad Dog to Best Friend: The Book Paperback, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook book cover hosted on www.flickr.com

Tags: dog afraid of lightening, dog afraid of lightning, dog afraid of storms, dog afraid of thunderstorms, dog fear of lightening, dog fear of lightning, dog fear of storms, dog fear of thunderstorms, dog fearful of lightening, dog fearful of lightning, dog fearful of storms, dog fearful of thunderstorms, dog lightning cape, dog lightning coat, dog scared of lightening, dog scared of lightning, dog scared of storms, dog scared of thunderstorms, dog storm cape, dog storm coat, dog storm jacket, dog storms, dog thunderstorms, dogs and static, dogs and static electricity, lightening dog cape, lightening dog coat, lightning dog cape, lightning dog coat, rain maker, rainmaker, static electricity dogs, storm defender, storm defender cape, storm defender dog cape, storm defender dog coat, storm defender dog jacket, storm totem, totem

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

I can’t believe that a whole year has passed since I last posted about our dog Dakota and her fear of thunderstorms. In Part 1 of our dog’s fear of thunderstorms, we ordered the Storm Defender Dog Cape. In Part 2 of our dog’s storm fear saga, we took you through the weeks following the arrival of the Storm Defender Dog Cape.

As soon as the Storm Defender Dog Cape arrived, we experienced sunny blue skies with not a hint of a storm for months. Where severe storms had hounded us for weeks on end, the arrival of the Storm Defender Dog Cape marked the end of the storms. Thus we were unable to test it out for a long time.

Our concern that Dakota’s storm fears would revert her back to her original bad behavior of pottying in the house and chewing up everything in sight turned out to be groundless. Once we had solved those dog problems, she remained solid. We now have no fear whatsoever that our dog will chew up or potty in the house, even if we leave her alone for several hours, and even if it’s storming out. She can also be trusted at other people’s houses now, she’s that good.

As good as she is with pottying, chewing, barking, and other dog issues that plague dog owners, we never did succeed in getting her past the fear of storms. I believe that the lightning strike so close to home was just too much for her to overcome, on top of my husband’s habit of soothing her fears.

Not once has our dog ever come to my side of the bed and pestered me when the fear of storms grabbed hold of her. She has never woken me up as I was solid from day one on NOT petting her from bed, or acknowledging her in any way after getting into bed. Once my feet came off the floor, I completely ignored the dogs.

On the other side of the bed, my husband with his big soft heart could not resist the sorrowful eyes, forlorn expressions, or the wagging tails of happy dogs who were being petted. Every night they went to him just before lights out, and he’d reach out and pet them.

For his soft heart he suffered a lot. Every time there was a storm, Dakota went to his side of the bed and either nudged him, poked him, or centered herself on the creaky floor and paced until he woke up. She hadn’t started out being a pest, but once he fed into it by coddling her, she escalated it. Storm nights for him were sleepless stretches of misery because if the dog wasn’t happy, she was going to make damn sure that Daddy wasn’t happy either.

Confining her to the bathroom, which she seemed to like, was one solution that got utilized a lot. I hated it, but we had to sleep and she wouldn’t let us sleep otherwise. The dog kept my husband awake, and he in turn kept me awake. The only one who was unaffected was our other dog, Sierra, who slept soundly through the whole night no matter what the rest of us were doing.

On a couple of occasions we locked our fearful dog Dakota out of the bedroom and gave her run of the entire rest of the house. She seemed happy with that option as well, which brought up an interesting observation. When we first adopted her, she did NOT want to come to bed with us. She fought it every step of the way. While she loved the bedroom during waking hours and adopted it as her private den, she did NOT want any part of our bedroom at night. Maybe we snored too loud, who knows?

As she was in training to be the perfect dog, she didn’t get a choice in the matter. We did not trust her with full run of the house unsupervised in the beginning, so at night she was relegated to our bedroom. She had full run of the bedroom, which seemed to us an incredibly big gesture for a dog who at that time was problematic. We did not crate her at night, or pen her up, but instead brought her into the bedroom and closed the door. She HATED it and we had to literally drag her into the bedroom in those early days.

Eventually she got the message and came in on her own, but she never liked it. She didn’t want to be there but she put up with it, not having a choice in the matter.

Once she was solid and we trusted her 100%, I realized that there was no reason not to give her the choice. She had earned the right to make her own decision, and there wasn’t a single reason for us to say NO to her nightly request not to join us in the bedroom. She didn’t chew, bark, or potty, so why not reward her good behavior with freedom? She had freedom from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed, so why not at night, too?

That has become our solution to her nighttime storm angst. Allowing our dog to spend the night on the opposite side of the closed bedroom door has allowed us to get a good night’s sleep, and she seems happier with the option. I know the solution doesn’t help any of you, but at least you know how her storm fear story ended.

Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 1
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 3
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 4

Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.

Bad Dog to Best Friend: The Book Paperback, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook book cover hosted on www.flickr.com

Tags: ausky, ausky dog, australian cattle dog husky, australian cattle dog husky mix, dog afraid of lightening, dog afraid of lightning, dog afraid of storms, dog afraid of thunderstorms, dog fear of lightening, dog fear of lightning, dog fear of storms, dog fear of thunderstorms, dog fearful of lightening, dog fearful of lightning, dog fearful of storms, dog fearful of thunderstorms, dog lightning cape, dog lightning coat, dog scared of lightening, dog scared of lightning, dog scared of storms, dog scared of thunderstorms, dog storm cape, dog storm coat, dog storm jacket, dog storms, dog thunderstorms, dogs and static, dogs and static electricity, lightening dog cape, lightening dog coat, lightning dog cape, lightning dog coat, static electricity dogs, storm defender, storm defender cape, storm defender dog cape, storm defender dog coat, storm defender dog jacket

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure

Part 2 of the Storm Defender dog cape story was supposed to be about the big storm that came thundering in and whether the Storm Defender dog cape kept our dog calm during the storm. The story, however, took a different sort of twist.

Whereas thunder and lightning storms had been rolling into Georgia almost daily before the Storm Defender arrived in Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 1, once the dog storm jacket arrived the clouds parted and the sun came out. For three weeks there wasn’t even a hint of a storm to try out the Storm Defender on. We made the joke that the Storm Defender must have worked like an anti-rainmaker by preventing thunderstorms from coming in the first place.

Remember the stories of the rainmakers of old, breezing into town with promises that they could make it rain for a small fee? Our Storm Defender dog jacket seemed to work in the opposite, keeping the storms away.

After three weeks of clear blue skies it was time for us to take a road trip with our dogs. We scoped out the weather at our destination so that we’d know how to pack and according to the weatherman, our vacation spot had at least two days of thunderstorms during our visit. I decided that the Storm Defender dog cape needed to go with us and I packed it just in case.

The day we arrived brought sunshine and blue skies as expected. The storms weren’t scheduled to blow in for another day so we enjoyed the balmy summer weather knowing we’d get rained out for the rest of our days there.

Day 2 started out with clear sunny skies and not a cloud to be seen. I kept waiting for the storm clouds to materialize but they did not. Day 3 brought the same: sunshine, clear blue skies and not a drop of rain.

We had arrived on a Saturday and stayed until Wednesday, leaving Wednesday morning for the road trip back home to Georgia. We had sunshine for all of the days we were there. Just as our weatherman in Georgia had done, the weatherman at our vacation spot had predicted thunderstorms and the Storm Defender dog cape had kept them away.

The first thing I did when we got home was to check the weather forecast. It was just after midnight and the day was scheduled to be sunny and clear. The following day however, had that nifty little lightning cloud icon we’d been chasing after since the Storm Defender dog cape had arrived. This time we’d get to try it out for sure.

As promised, the day was sunny and clear. I checked the weather again just before bed fully expecting to see the thunderstorm icon but this time, it was gone. The thunderstorm prediction had completely vanished and the rest of the week predicts beautiful sunny skies. The 10-day forecast shows three thunder and lightning storms next week but I’ve given up on believing the weatherman.

Almost five weeks have passed since the Storm Defender dog jacket arrived and not a week has gone by without predictions of thunder and lightning storms wherever we are. Not one of the storms has materialized. So far the Storm Defender is worth its weight in gold for keeping the storms away, especially on our vacation when we had a few days at home after the road trip.

As the Storm Defender dog cape comes with a full money-back guarantee, we’re hoping that there isn’t a time limit on the guarantee. You need to try it for at least three storms before returning it for a refund but there isn’t a reference such as a “30-day money back guarantee” so we don’t know what happens if there simply are no thunder and lightning storms for an extended period.

When the rainstorms finally do arrive, we’ll post Part 3 of the Storm Defender story. We absolutely believe that the Storm Defender dog cape will give our dog relief from her fears by preventing the build up of static electricity around her, but until the thunder and lightning storms materialize, all we can offer is to say Stay Tuned for Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 3…

Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 1
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 2
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 3
Storm Defender Dog Cape – Part 4

Dakota was a semi-adult shelter dog who was the Queen of Bad Behavior and the Master of Dirty Tricks. Bad Dog to Best Friend takes you from Dakota’s awful beginnings to her amazing transformation.

Bad Dog to Best Friend: The Book Paperback, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Audiobook book cover hosted on www.flickr.com

Tags: ausky, ausky dog, australian cattle dog husky, australian cattle dog husky mix, dog afraid of lightening, dog afraid of lightning, dog afraid of storms, dog afraid of thunderstorms, dog fear of lightening, dog fear of lightning, dog fear of storms, dog fear of thunderstorms, dog fearful of lightening, dog fearful of lightning, dog fearful of storms, dog fearful of thunderstorms, dog lightning cape, dog lightning coat, dog scared of lightening, dog scared of lightning, dog scared of storms, dog scared of thunderstorms, dog storm cape, dog storm coat, dog storm jacket, dog storms, dog thunderstorms, dogs and static, dogs and static electricity, lightening dog cape, lightening dog coat, lightning dog cape, lightning dog coat, static electricity dogs, storm defender, storm defender cape, storm defender dog cape, storm defender dog coat, storm defender dog jacket

Category: Dog Tails of Adventure