To suggest that firework phobias in dogs are more manageable than you might think

[Veterinari]

Every Bonfire night/Christmas/New year there are threads on this.

Most dog owners will know the basics:
Behave normally, have the radio on
Ensure dog has a safe dark comfortable den to hide in
Offer reassurance - you cannot reinforce fear
Long walk during the day to tire out followed by a good feed - more likely to be content and less reactive
Distract with licki mats/frozen kong etc

But also:
Get your dog checked for chronic painful disease - arthritis and dental disease are common and noise phobias are strongly correlated with chronically painful conditions. Treating the pain has been shown to reduce noise phobias (and is good for welfare)
Start firework desensitisation therapy using apps played at low volume or the 'sounds scary' resource.

Use appropriate medication:
Speak to your vet - sileo and pexicon are the licensed medications and can be game changing
Also pain relief if there's an underlying painful condition.

For milder anxieties supplements like zylkene, yucalm etc may help - again speak to your vet or behaviourist.

Adaptil (pheromone) alone is unlikely to make any difference in a phobic dog. Genuine panic/phobia usually needs medication

Thunder shirts and other complementary approaches can be helpful for some dogs but the response varies

Some breeders before they let their pups go to their furever homes release party-poppers regularly to enable the dogs to get used to unexpected sudden bangs.

Some owners I read this week resorted to cutting off the end of a sock and putting it over their dogs ears....or using a ‘No Flap Ear Wrap’ to reduce the volume.

If fireworks were only on designated days and organised displays, perhaps could be more manageable. However, they are at unpredictable times over about a fortnight.

Thankfully, my old dog isn’t too bothered so long as she’s with me. She gets nervous if she’s home alone, so I make sure she isn’t around bonfire night. However, my little parrot is bloody terrified, and I’m worried he’s going to injure himself or have a heart attack like a friend’s bird did :( Any tips on training him would be great!

My mum has a dog and I do think that her “nerves”over fireworks make the dog worse. She expects a problem and when they start she doesn’t try and calm or distract the dog, she gets in a state herself saying “oh please no” and she gets so riled up the poor dog doesn’t stand a chance. She says she gets in this state because she “knows” her dog will be distressed while being unable to see that she is contributing to it. Animals pick up on our moods so the dog will never be calm when my mum is getting in such a state herself.

We have just done the 1st fireworks night with our 2 cats. When they started they looked wary and unsure. I just very calmly talked to them and stroked them a bit and they were fine. Then we just carried on like it was a normal night. I know this tactic won’t work in all cases but I also think that in some cases, the owners don’t help by expecting problems, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

@40somethingJBJ

Thankfully, my old dog isn’t too bothered so long as she’s with me. She gets nervous if she’s home alone, so I make sure she isn’t around bonfire night. However, my little parrot is bloody terrified, and I’m worried he’s going to injure himself or have a heart attack like a friend’s bird did :( Any tips on training him would be great!

Just as with dogs, training won't be effective if he's already panicking, so you need to work on counterconditioning throughout the year to acclimatise him to the noise by pairing it with a treat when played at low volume and gradually increasing the volume as he becomes more comfortable. If he's really panicking then medication during firework season along with the usual husbandry (blanket over cage, radio on, lots of tasty enrichment) many be required

Although some of the advice I think is good.
You're ignoring that many animals dont have humans to treat them, wild and stray animals, and animals who's owners dont care. And I'm not sure thunder shirts work for horses.
Also, the idea of drugging animals just so we can enjoy setting off explosives doesn't sit well with me.

Plus, it's even more rubbish we're dumping into our oceans and waterways and countryside.
We could just think "hey I know we like this but it's actually not good for the environment or wildlife so we should stop doing it"

We foster so have had numerous scared dogs, some of them would have responded well to this advice. Some wouldnt.

Unfortunately in home fire work displays mean it can be difficult to train as the noise is unpredictable. One of our dogs was nervy but totally managing with music on etc, until one day she was in the garden and a house backing on to us let of a fire work (in September!)

We once had a dog who needed to be nowhere near fire work after being on a walk, and walking past a house that let of an firework on the other side of the fence to the path . This was so loud that the car alarm next to us went off. The dog bolted, and injured themselves on the lead and i genuinely think if it was another dog that we wouldnt have totally lost them.

Its why i support only allowing larger displays because i could then put stuff in place like medication, radio etc (including leaving the area!). Next door neighbour displays are unpredictable and poorly controlled (hence someone set one off in a communal green when i was walking across it!) . By the time you often know they are being set off, its begun and its too late to put things in place

@Nottherealslimshady

Although some of the advice I think is good. You're ignoring that many animals dont have humans to treat them, wild and stray animals, and animals who's owners dont care. And I'm not sure thunder shirts work for horses. Also, the idea of drugging animals just so we can enjoy setting off explosives doesn't sit well with me.

Plus, it's even more rubbish we're dumping into our oceans and waterways and countryside.
We could just think "hey I know we like this but it's actually not good for the environment or wildlife so we should stop doing it"

Well if by ignoring, you mean that I'm not offering advice and solutions to those problems you're quite right. Because it's outside the scope of my expertise. However if you have the answers you're very welcome to start your own thread that addresses those points.

@Thrownaway

We foster so have had numerous scared dogs, some of them would have responded well to this advice. Some wouldnt.

Unfortunately in home fire work displays mean it can be difficult to train as the noise is unpredictable. One of our dogs was nervy but totally managing with music on etc, until one day she was in the garden and a house backing on to us let of a fire work (in September!)

We once had a dog who needed to be nowhere near fire work after being on a walk, and walking past a house that let of an firework on the other side of the fence to the path . This was so loud that the car alarm next to us went off. The dog bolted, and injured themselves on the lead and i genuinely think if it was another dog that we wouldnt have totally lost them.

Its why i support only allowing larger displays because i could then put stuff in place like medication, radio etc (including leaving the area!). Next door neighbour displays are unpredictable and poorly controlled (hence someone set one off in a communal green when i was walking across it!) . By the time you often know they are being set off, its begun and its too late to put things in place

Yes with a traumatic experience like the one you describe the panic/fear response would be very strong.

You'd probably also need to consider the presence of generalised anxiety disorders with a firework phobia on top.

Many dogs that have traumatic backgrounds require long term medication in addition to environmental management to manage their anxiety disorders.

For those with puppies and dogs who seem fine now...

Please please people, wherever you can, can you classically condition your dogs - pair firework sounds with super high value foods (or technically, super high value anything but food is usually the most convenient).

I am seening SO many people with puppies who say 'oh he's fine so I haven't bothered with treats for it' not realising particularly tiny puppies will often appear fine but are NOT forming a strong positive association in their minds, eventually that lack of positive association in the 'mental database' means puppy actually becomes scared and THEN you will be playing catch up trying to counter condition, ie turn an unpleasant, aversive experience into a pleasant one, which is much harder work.

Do not wait for your dogs to become scared before you try to build positive associations using classical conditioning.

Socialisation/habituation does not mean simply 'exposure to xyz' it means building that positive association.

Our 8 months old hadn't been much bothered, a bit worried and coming closer to us, but nothing more.

We got him used to loud noise from the time we brought him home at 8 weeks by taking him out every day in a sling so he got used to noise of traffic, cars, motorbike etc...

Taking him out everywhere for 4 weeks before he even got to walk out was the best thing we could have done. He wasn't phased by anything by then and took to walking without a lead very easily.

I'd recommend to any new puppy owner to do the same.

YABU

@dontdisturbmenow

Our 8 months old hadn't been much bothered, a bit worried and coming closer to us, but nothing more.

We got him used to loud noise from the time we brought him home at 8 weeks by taking him out every day in a sling so he got used to noise of traffic, cars, motorbike etc...

Taking him out everywhere for 4 weeks before he even got to walk out was the best thing we could have done. He wasn't phased by anything by then and took to walking without a lead very easily.

I'd recommend to any new puppy owner to do the same.

As @WiddlinDiddlin Prevention is better than cure.

Your pup is already showing clear signs of anxiety and noise phobias usually escalate over time. So by putting in some noise habituation work now you can help to prevent that anxiety escalating

Socialisation is much more than just going out and about (although that can be helpful) it's strategic, targeted positive learning experience of potential aversive triggers.

Sophia Yin has an excellent socialisation checklist here

drsophiayin.com/app/uploads/2015/12/Socialization_Checklist.pdf

@asprinklingofsugar

YABU

Why is that @asprinklingofsugar ?

I agree with you OP. I don't think that pet owners can expect others not to do something that they enjoy because it upsets their pet. I say this as a pet owner. I have had all sorts of different dogs in my life, some not bothered, some more bothered, but I have always been able to do something to improve/assist them. In actual fact, with my current dog, I have found that letting him see/watch the fireworks helped him enormously as he then knew what the noise was. If you chose to have a pet, then you can't necessarily expect everyone else to put your pet before themselves or their families. So you have to manage the problem.

@Arthersleep

I agree with you OP. I don't think that pet owners can expect others not to do something that they enjoy because it upsets their pet. I say this as a pet owner. I have had all sorts of different dogs in my life, some not bothered, some more bothered, but I have always been able to do something to improve/assist them. In actual fact, with my current dog, I have found that letting him see/watch the fireworks helped him enormously as he then knew what the noise was. If you chose to have a pet, then you can't necessarily expect everyone else to put your pet before themselves or their families. So you have to manage the problem.

I haven't said I agree with fireworks. In fact I think they should be banned if not noiseless

It's interesting how many posters are focussing on the pros and cons of fireworks when I haven't actually posted about that. I'm literally just offering advice on how to make firework season more manageable for dogs as it's a reality that we live with.

How much of a selfish sociopath do you have to be to be STILL setting them off all night days later?

It is not November 5th you heartless fuckers.

Nothing helps my dog, we simply have to wait it out.
Tonight is the third night in a row of anxiety induced by fireworks 😡😡

@FippertyGibbett

Nothing helps my dog, we simply have to wait it out. Tonight is the third night in a row of anxiety induced by fireworks 😡😡

Just scumbags doing it now. It's not bonfire night you morons.

Our old boy becomes uncontrollably afraid and we’ve tried all of the above. The absolute unpredictability of the bangs make planning difficult too. Unfortunately the vet has agreed to medication but has run out this year!

Anyway this year we have, so far, got away fairly lightly. Not too many close neighbours have been setting them off.

OP, a friend said her dog was born shortly before firework season and was fine with them. Mine was born shortly afterwards and has always had major issues...maybe being exposed as a tiny pup makes a difference?

Same as previous posters. My spaniel is spending the seventh night in a row absolutely petrified because people are still letting off fireworks. They also seem louder this year. Sileo gel works for a couple of hours at the most and they are going for 6+ hours a night at the moment.
Adaptil, thunder shirt, crate set up somewhere quiet covered in blankets, classical music, long walk, big bowl of porridge, desensitisation CDs made no difference. Tried sedation one year and that was the worst one of the lot.
I get that people like fireworks, I love them, but the noise is ridiculous.

@Arthersleep

I agree with you OP. I don't think that pet owners can expect others not to do something that they enjoy because it upsets their pet. I say this as a pet owner. I have had all sorts of different dogs in my life, some not bothered, some more bothered, but I have always been able to do something to improve/assist them. In actual fact, with my current dog, I have found that letting him see/watch the fireworks helped him enormously as he then knew what the noise was. If you chose to have a pet, then you can't necessarily expect everyone else to put your pet before themselves or their families. So you have to manage the problem.

This. End of. Stop thinking others have to change to accommodate the pet you decided to get.

I am also wondering what all the wild animals and horses do when there are thunderstorms or other loud noises.

My cat is being terrorised by my neighbour's cat. It's caused her significant distress and he's had her cornered, terrified and shaking on more than one occasion. I haven't gone storming round expecting my neighbour to change their behaviour or ask them to keep their cat in. They are unlikely to comply and it will just affect neighbourly relations.
I've thought about what WE could do to minimise the problems for our cat as that's all we have control over. So we've got various cat calming substances for the home, have reinstated the cat litter tray so she doesn't have to go out if she doesn't want to, and have gone out into the garden with her so she feels more confident to do so. And chased off terrorising cat whenever we see him so he doesn't think the garden his (with limited success of course!!).

You decided to get a pet. You can't expect other people to change their behaviour because you wanted a pet.

Our youngest dog has a little child's play tent she uses when she wants to feel safe and it works well. To be honest the worst part about fireworks where I live is the litter. The fields are full of the cardboard tubes and shrapnel bits of plastic and metal. It's horrendous for all the grazing wildlife and the dogs that pick it up. I wonder if any of the people setting off all these fireworks think about the litter it causes and makes an effort to clear it up? Very few I bet.

There is a really easy solution to this - humans could stop being so damn selfish.

The posters saying that they shouldn’t have to change their habits to accommodate other people’s pets, does that mean I can listen to my explicit death metal music in my garden when my neighbours children are out playing? After all it was their choice to have them. I don’t care if their children pick up some nasty swear words. I wouldn’t do that though because I’m not a cunt.