I dont know bout older dogs but when a pup show signs of fear the best way to stop it, is to ignore it if you try to calm them by showing affection it has the exact opposite affect your making it think its ok to be scared so the dog stays in that mindset i did it with mypit and he never bothers about anything like that. Not 100% sure bout an older dog the sound machine sounds like a good idea.

yea great advice, with our female when I was growing up we did just ignore it but it never got better, I think she became unstable after she got spayed. With Goren, if he showed he is sared of something I make him sit and look at it (Ex: one of those huge blow up people that car dealerships use, its like a sock that they blow air in and it flys around, well I saw one, knew he would be scared so walked him by it, stopped next to it till he become more confidant, then did it every day till he just ignored it, it would be hard to do with a storm though I think, but building confidance probably would help either way)

Like Lillianalove said -- We worked our adult pit Lucy through thunderstorm fears by using recordings of thunder played really softly, and treats. If she stayed relatively calm she'd get treated. It worked pretty well -- she's much better than she used to be. The only thing that will still get her is if the thunder is REALLY loud and right overhead ... then she wedges her big muscle butt under the bed and shakes. http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/hide.gif It's nothing like it used to be, though.

Jake was afraid of thunderstorms when we first got him at 9 months. I have always made a point to act normal through storms and not really react to them or how the dogs are acting at all. However, when I do have a dog that starts showing signs of stress or fear, I always make a point to play with them. Whenever a storm is moving in, I grab a favorite toy and it's on. This worked for Jake and other dogs that I've had in the past. Now he rarely shows any fear or stress. He will wake up and look around if there is a loud crash in the middle of the night, but now just goes right back to snoring away.

One of the english pointers is scared to death of them. Guns don't bother her...go figure.

We just let her in, and she goes to the room in the middle of the house with no windows and slips under the bed. She is so old now, that sometimes we have to help her get out.

We had some storms go throught the other night ... Meg did fine ... even while outside .. she would kinda just look around to see what the noise was. She's even to the point where rain doesn't bother her ... she'll go out and play in it.

Our Mastiff doesn't even wake up, maybe to stretch, yawn and I swear, like a man would readjust his crotch in his sleep .. looks like what she does, but our pittie Zoey, she is what we call "thick" (hell, she's fat okay?) and one little rumble of thunder, if she's upstairs she makes a b-line for under the bed ... when it's over we have to go lift the bed up for her cuz she's stuck under there!!! It's crazy ... she's always been that way - we've had her since she was 10 weeks old ...