There are many situations that can cause anxiety for your dog. Many dogs suffer from thunderstorm fear/phobia. Some dogs can suffer from other noise fears or even light fears. I have a dog with a phobia of flies.

The most important technique to help reduce your dog's fear is to teach your dog to relax. When your dog is scared & anxious, the worst thing you can do for your dog is to say it’s ok, the noise won't hurt you". This is reassuring to us because we understand our own language. A dog only hears our reassuring tone and assumes that it is appropriate to be fearful in that situation since we are reassuring them.

You first need to learn how to recognize relaxed behavior, facial and body postures. The ears should be relaxed, the tail still, the body relaxed, pupils not dilated, the eyes not be darting, the brown not be furrowed. This is the goal state for your dog that you will start to reward. First, pick a quiet location. It may help to use a bath mat for your dog to sit on; this will help in the future as your dog associates the mat with a "safe" and relaxing location that you can move around. Ask your dog to sit or lie down and remain still. You may want to associate a command, such as "settle", "quiet", or "steady", to keep the dog still. Initially, you reward (with food, praise or petting) just remaining still. You quickly only reward when you see relaxed behavior. This will take small incremental steps to achieve more & more relaxed behavior for longer & longer.

Keep the training sessions brief, about 5 minutes. Remember to proceed at your dog's pace. If you rush the training, the dog will only get stressed out. When your dog is totally relaxed (sighs or puts his head down), then you can start changing the situation. You may want to move away from the dog while you still reward the relaxed behavior. The next step is to use the relaxation training during times that cause stress. You will have to start at the beginning of training again since the dog's stress is higher. The goal is that the training goes faster in periods of stress because of the dog's previous learning.

My fly fearful dog plays a "touch it" game with me in her fearful situations. I ask her to touch my hand with her nose. This is a game I have taught her previously and she associates it with fun and food rewards.