Probably a silly thought, but last night as I lay in bed watching the display of lightening through the night I wondered if my dog would be safe in the metal crate, also in my bedroom.
Since her double TPLO op I still keep her crated in the bedroom at night to make sure she doesn't attempt to jump on the bed ( as she did pre op). I had this worry in my head about lightening striking the metal cage. Has this ever been known to happen? or is it me just being a usual worry guts.

I believe if lightning strikes a house the electrical current will find a conductive path down through the house til it earths on the ground - that's usually via electrical wires (hence sometimes sparks or fire come out of sockets), or plumbing (water), cables and telephone lines. The current shouldn't therefore be any worse or more of a risk for your dog indoors in his cage than it will be for you in your bed. IMO (though I'm no expert!) you would be very unfortunate to have your house hit by lightning at all since usually tall trees, water sources and higher buildings which often have lightning conductors (i.e. skyscrapers, church's etc) attract the lightning therefore reducing the chances of normal houses being hit.  If your dog was outside in his cage though (I doubt this would ever happen) -and  in the middle of a big flat garden - then I have no idea, but would expect that if lightning was heading to that area and no other building or tall trees or bodies of water were around to attract it then it could well be attracted to the crate rather than just straight to ground.

no other building or tall trees or bodies of water were around to attract it then it could well be attracted to the crate rather than just straight to ground.

Yep that is my home, back of beyond in the sticks on reasonably high ground ( for Norfolk that is) Lightening came through the skylight window last year and hit a ceiling fan with a massive flash and bang, scared the living daylights out of us. It fused all the circuit but apart from that we got off quite lightly.
Due to the heat last night all the windows were open and the crate was near the window where my dog could get the best of the coolish air, so I now have a healthy respect for lightening and hence my worry about the crate.

> Lightening came through the skylight window last year and hit a ceiling fan with a massive flash and bang

OMG - no wonder you're worried!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was one almighty thunderclap in our town last night that literally made both our house one side of town shake - and my Dad who was 8 miles away driving the other side of town also felt it rock his cab. I jumped out of bed when it happened - what for, I don't know, I've never feared thunder or lightning much before, but I found myself in the middle of the room wondering whether the roof was going to cave in, and flapping about not knowing whether I should be doing something ............ then I looked at my Westie's - Wallace opened one eye from his basket in my room and promptly went back to sleep and Lottie was still asleep flat on her back, belly up, on my bed - snoring - loudly. I felt like a real wimp in comparison!!

We had a belter of a thunderstorm here last night, lots of noise and flashing. I normally like to watch storms, but I made a point of going back to sleep to prove to the pup that there was nothing to worry about. Dog 1 took Wallace's lead and ignored it so Dog 2 followed her example. There must be some dogs that are terrified by the noise and lights.
We are south of Sheffield, and on Wednesday night we watched an amazing lightshow as one cloud passed overhead, no noise, no rain just lots of different coloured flashes.

What do people do if their dogs are afraid? It's not as if you can prepare as you could for bonfire night.

> What do people do if their dogs are afraid? It's not as if you can prepare as you could for bonfire night.

I used those CD's with sounds on like thunder, washing machines etc with my pups - though I will never know if it was those CD's that helped with them not caring about storms or if they were the sort of dogs that wouldn't have anyway.

My sis' cocker on the other hand gets distraught - he used to force doors open in the house and actually run upstairs and hide IN the bath!  Nothing would calm him. He was the same with fireworks too. Its horrible to see him so stressed but he doesn't want anyone around to comfort him either. He has other temperament problems and terrible eye issues since he was a pup so I am sure that has something to do with it.  Luckily now in his dotage he has gone a little deaf and so loud noises don't stress him out anymore. But anyone who has dogs who get distraught like him have my total sympathy - not sure I would be able to cope well with it if it was my dogs.

Funny how it goes.

We are staying in the motorhome just to the east of Hereford and the weather app gave dire warning of thunder and heavy rain. Clouds came over and it got darker and darker, everything went still and then...........

Nothing happened, not a drop nor a rumble.

theirs thunder going off as i.am writting this lighting went throw phone line then throw phone when i was child i have been so frighed of lighting since i have heard of livestock been killed by lightijist ng
one of my pointers and one of my cats are scared of thunder usley 
when i was child my mother said thunder is god moving his funiture !!

> when i was child my mother said thunder is god moving his funiture !!

LOL, my Mum used to say that.

> What do people do if their dogs are afraid? It's not as if you can prepare as you could for bonfire night.

I have emergency packets of rich tea biscuits upstairs and downstairs and when it does hit, as it did yesterday and saturday morning (and hoooooo boy did it hit saturday morning - 3 flipping hours of it from 3am!) then Phoebe immediately gets a hefty dose of melatonin and xanax on top, if I haven't had time to get her the melatonin before it starts.

Then I feed her bits of biscuit every time there's a rumble.  She's slowly improving, Saturday she only barked at 4 or 5 rumbles and it rumbled almost constantly for the full 3 hours - before she would have barked loudly, frantically and continuously for that entire time while running around the whole house!

Poor Phoebe, can't imagine how stressed she must be and am glad to hear she is improving. Nice to hear other people have emergency rich tea biscuits too!!