I am sure that fear of lightning is instinctual.
There is a big husky dog who lives several blocks from my place. Whenever
it starts thundering he comes over and whines until I pet him and tell him it
is OK. Then he settles down as long as I continue the procedure.
But the fear is not just thunder, it is the startle reaction from any loud
noise. On the 4th of July I usually have a crowd of dogs come over and
hide under the piano hoping I will play and drown out the firecrackers.
Zima, however, has never shown any fear of T-storms. Yesterday morning
we had a thunderstorm, and she came over, crawled on the bed and went
to sleep until it had stopped raining, at which time it was play as usual.
Speaking of the thunderstorm yesterday. I was shown some statistics
some time ago showing that in Colorado strong changes in atmospheric
pressure accompanying T-storms and high winds frequently are associated
with small earthquakes. The Ml 4.0 occurred shortly after the strong weather
system resulting in yesterday's storms went through - hummmm.