How It Started

ThunderWork’s founder, Phil Blizzard, has a dog named Dosi who was extremely frightened by thunderstorms and fireworks. During nighttime storms in North Carolina, Phil often would wake up with a 50-pound dog standing on his chest…shaking, panting, miserable. Wanting to comfort Dosi (and get more sleep), Phil did what most families do and consulted with veterinarians and dog trainers. Unfortunately, no one had a good solution. Vets only could offer medications like sedatives and anti-depressants. They openly acknowledged these were just “band aids” to get through tough times; they weren’t really solutions. Phil tried sedatives with Dosi a few times, but the side effects were too severe. Trainers only could offer desensitization training programs. These programs require tremendous time commitments and even for those that have the time, they very rarely work. For Dosi, desensitization was impossible because, as with many dogs, Dosi doesn’t respond to recorded storms or fireworks…only the real thing. So for many years Dosi (and her family) had to suffer though thunderstorms and Fourth of July fireworks.

Then one day, a friend of the family recommended trying a snug wrap…like swaddling an infant. It sounded far-fetched, but nothing else had worked and it certainly couldn’t hurt to try. During one bad storm, they wrestled Dosi into an old t-shirt and used packing tape to create mild pressure. They were amazed…Dosi calmed almost instantly and lay down for the duration of the storm. And it worked the next time. And the next. And the next. Now they just needed an easier way to apply the pressure that didn’t require struggling to get a T-shirt onto Dosi. ThunderShirt evolved from there. ThunderShirt has now had an insanely calming effect on millions of dogs and cats around the world. And ThunderWorks is dedicated to providing simple, effective solutions for the most common problems faced by families…anxieties, over-excitement, pulling, jumping, barking and much more.