There is some info about using melatonin in the Illinois State Veterinary proceedings- http://www.isvma.org/events/Convention/2009_convention/2009.proceedings.pdf -on pages 83 and 330. There was also a something in JAVMA about 10 years ago.

Thanks for this. I’d have to wonder, as you live somewhat near me and my dog’s t-phobia began at the same time, if your dog didn’t react to the series of ‘microbursts’ that went through our area then (they’re like little reverse tornados). We were on the front line of that, with tress ripped out of the ground across the street and our side OK. Jess was 7 at the time.

Half a tree came down in our yard about 10 ft from the house. then the city showed up, wood chippers and all at 3AM. Jess quickly became an expert backward chainer. As soon as the air pressure began to drop, long before I knew of any approaching storm, I had a shaking dog under my legs! She’d alternate between pacing and hiding under my legs.

Jess never got really bad, fortunately. A little comforting and distraction and leaving the AC on for noise reduction got her over it by the end of the following summer. She would check in at the beginning of a storm and then go about her normal business. Now she doesn’t even check in.

Another thing we did try was to run a fabric softener dyer sheet over her to reduce her sensitivity to static charge in the air. I’m not sure whether it was the dryer sheets or the attention that produced results, but it seemed to help.