Abstract
We calculate the stability diagram for a trapped normal Bose gas with dipole-dipole interactions. Our study characterizes the roles of trap geometry, temperature, and short-range interactions on the stability. We predict a robust double instability feature in oblate trapping geometries arising from the interplay of thermal gas saturation and the anisotropy of the interaction. Our results are relevant to current experiments with polar molecules and will be useful in developing strategies to obtain a polar molecule Bose-Einstein condensate.