Thundershirt Review- Day 16

I haven't been keeping up to date on my thundershirt review on this blog as much as I said I was going to, but then again, who wants to hear the same thing every single day? I figured I'd span my review out and write about it whenever I feel compelled.

As of right now the thundershirt seems to be helping Bamm with his anxiety somewhat. It's definitely not something to be used as a replacement for regular exercise (both physically and mentally) and crate games. However, it is proving to serve as a great tool in addition to everything else.

One thing I've recently discovered is that one of the big issues Bamm was having was the particular room he was being crated in. I'm not sure if it's because it's above the kitchen where most of our family activities tend to occur or what? I've been letting him crate in Cricket's crate in my room whenever Cricket isn't crated and that seems to be helping a ton as well. He seems more comfortable in her crate, probably because it's in my room. At night he's just been sleeping on the bed with me so that he doesn't have to be crated.

When you use the thundershirt to help with separation anxiety during crate time, it's completely important to make sure that when you put the thundershirt on your dog it's not ALWAYS when you're going to crate them. It's best not to have your dog begin to associate the thundershirt with being crated every time because the thundershirt could work against your favor, so in order to dispel that; Bamm wears his thundershirt when we're doing fun activities out in the yard as well. I want to make the thundershirt a positive thing in his life and I don't want him to have any reason whatsoever to fear it.

There's been a huge improvement in Bamm lately though. He isn't crying as much when he is crated, as long as he crated in my room. As long as he gets to run pretty good in the yard and play some games before being crated, he's starting to calm down again during crate time. I'm hoping that in time he will no longer have any fear about being crated alone.