Just in time for the Fourth, a dachshund reviews the ThunderShirt

My name is Billy Ray. I’m an 11-year-old miniature long-haired dachshund. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I’m afraid of everything.

I’m terrified of the doorbell.

I freak when the phone rings.

I weep, shake uncontrollably and hide under the bed every Wednesday when the lawn men arrive with their noisy machines, and refuse to come out for hours after they’ve left.

Thunderstorms scare me shitless. (Just ask my dad, who spent an hour scrubbing the laundry room floor after that big storm last month.)  

But nothing -- nothing -- sends me over the edge like fireworks.

I grew up in Connecticut, in a house situated halfway between fields where two towns staged massive fireworks displays every Fourth of July. The Fourth, to me, was my own personal Battle of Stalingrad. I was thrilled two years ago when we moved to Florida full time.

Little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Fireworks are legal here. Any idiot can buy them and set them off and lots of them do, starting days in advance of the holiday. The week leading up to the Fourth, last year, was the worst of my life. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I had to be carried outside and, once on the ground, ran back to the door, desperate to get away from what sounded like sniper fire all around me. Intellectually I know I’m not going to be struck by a Roman candle or blown to smithereens by a string of firecrackers being set off on a beach a mile away but I can’t help myself. I’m a dachshund. Neurosis is hard-wired into my DNA.

A few weeks ago, following the laundry room incident, dad returned home with a product he had seen on TV called a ThunderShirt. It is basically a straight jacket for dogs, a girdle with a hole for my head that wraps around my trunk and is held together with Velcro snaps. They say I look ridiculous wearing it, but if you ask me, no more ridiculous than my dachshund sister, Bonnie, looks in the ruffled purple dress mom bought her at PetCo last year which has no function whatsoever other than to make her look like a hairy, big-nosed Barbie.

That evening, when we heard the distant rumblings of an approaching thunderstorm and I started to shake, dad wrapped me in the ThunderShirt and placed me between him and mom on the sofa as they watched Orange is the New Black on Netflix. (Season three, by the way, isn’t on par with the first two. It’s as if the writers don’t quite know where they’re going and Piper, the star, has been relegated to a supporting role, but I digress.)

There were thousands of ka-booms that night – Southwest Florida is known as the “lightning capital of world” for a good reason – but you know something? I made it through just fine in my ThunderShirt. It made me feel …how to say this? ... protected …secure … enveloped by a sensation that isn’t quite love but is definitely more than like. Granted, I was hiding under a sofa cushion during most of the storm but, for the first time, I didn’t feel impending doom.

And that feeling has continued this week, as fireworks have been going off all around me. I'm OK, thanks to my ThunderShirt. I can’t quite explain it.

I’m writing this post as a public service for other dogs who may need help during the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. Be assured I’m not a paid spokesdog for ThunderShirt which, by the way, can be purchased online at www.thundershirt.com or at pet supply stores (though, if the manufacturer would like a new spokesdog, I’ll be happy to model because I’m much handsomer than the Jack Russell Terrier featured on the web site).

My fellow dogs, we don’t ask for much. A bowl of fresh water. A can of Cesar Home Delights® Pot Roast with Spring Vegetables Dinner once a day, along with a handful of imported Danish kibble. We bring our masters lots of pleasure. We, after all, are the only creatures who love them unconditionally. Even they don’t love each other unconditionally. So if you, like me, are terrified by fireworks, ask your caregiver to run out and buy you a ThunderShirt this very minute.

Sacrificing your dignity is a small price to pay for feeling safe and secure as the world explodes around you. Or the doorbell rings.

Happy Fourth everyone. Be safe.