Fireworks and thunderstorms

It’s no secret that many dogs are afraid of fireworks and thunderstorms. For some, the loud noises and bright flashes of light can be overwhelming and terrifying. As a guardian, it’s important to know how to prepare and support your dog during these stressful times.

In this blog I will give you some tips for how to handle the situation on the day of the fireworks or thunder. I will also share some advice on how to help your dog overcome or at least decrease their fear of fireworks and thunder. There will also be a lot of links to other great trainers and behaviorists with their advice.

Tips for what to do on the day of the fireworks or thunderstorms:

Here are some tips to help your dog feel more comfortable and safer during fireworks or thunderstorms.

1. Create a Safe Space: Designate a cozy, comfortable area in your home where your dog can feel safe and secure. This can be a crate, a room with a comfortable bed, or even just a corner of the house. Make sure the space is away from windows and doors to reduce noise and light. Consider adding some clothing that your dog’s favorite person has worn to provide some added smelly comfort.
2. Use Calming Techniques: There are several calming techniques that can help reduce your dog’s anxiety during fireworks or thunderstorms. For example, playing calming music or using a white noise machine can help drown out the loud noises. You can also try using a calming spray or diffuser, which releases pheromones that can help relax your dog. You can also try using a Thundershirt as this may work on some dogs. Here are a couple of links for Thundershirts: https://topdogtips.com/best-dog-anxiety-vests and https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/thundershirt-the-best-solution-for-dog-anxiety. You can even make your own: https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/ttouch-practitioners-explain-canine-body-wrapping/ (should only be left on for a maximum of 15 minutes).
3. Exercise Your Dog: Before the fireworks or thunderstorm begins, take your dog for a long walk, or play a game of tug or fetch as well as doing some mentally stimulating exercises (trick training, scatter feed in long grass, focus games). This will help tire them out and help them relax. Additionally, it’s best to keep your dog indoors during the event to prevent them from running away or getting lost. (Keep them on a lead when walking them on these days).
4. Consult with Your Vet: If your dog’s fear of fireworks or thunderstorms is severe, you may want to consider speaking with your veterinarian. They may be able to prescribe a situational medication or recommend other strategies to help your dog cope with their anxiety.
5. Cover windows and doors to minimize the bright light flashes and try masking the noise as much as possible – here’s a good link to learn more about ways to mask noise: https://eileenanddogs.com/blog/2013/12/30/sound-sensitive-reactive-dogs/

These are steps you can take if you don’t have time to prepare and condition your dog for fireworks and thunderstorm, or the fear has just suddenly emerged, and you can help your dog feel more comfortable and safer during these events. Remember to be patient and understanding with your dog, as their fear is a natural response to a stressful situation.

Distractions.

You can try to use distractions to keep your dog under threshold. This can be attempted by doing things with your dog that he normally finds fun or interesting. It can be a training session, food puzzle, any problem-solving exercise – perhaps some Freework that can be used as a fun and engaging enrichment activity among other things.

How to prepare your dog for fireworks or thunderstorms:

Even if your dog has so far never had a negative response to fireworks or thunder it’s sensible to make sure that things stay this way.

There are a number of things that you can do to prepare your dog for these events.

Medication.

If your dog suffers from general anxiety have a chat to your veterinarian about medication for the anxiety. It doesn’t have to be forever, but it will help while you are working on decreasing their anxiety. And as mentioned above there are also situational medicines that you can get for events like Bonfire Night or New Year’s Eve when you know your dog might be scared.

Music.

You can do music desensitization to both fireworks and thunder. Follow these steps:

1. Choose music (classical, reggae or soft jazz – or test what your dog seems to enjoy).
2. Play your dog’s music over at least 10 sessions while playing with your dog, giving fuss, doing enrichment activities, or giving a gentle massage. We are now building a very positive association with the music.
3. Continue to play the music while doing things your dog enjoys, but now start adding the sounds of fireworks at a low volume.
4. Repeat this over several training sessions.
5. Start slowly increasing the volume of the sounds of fireworks while playing your dog’s music and still doing things your dog enjoys.
6. Repeat this over several training sessions.
7. When Bonfire Night, New Years Eve or other events come around, play your dog’s music, and do things your dog enjoys. Even if it’s just chewing a bone. Keep the music on while the fireworks are ongoing.
8. Repeat these sessions randomly throughout the year so that your dog remembers the music and the positive association: sounds of fireworks = fun things.
9. Repeat the same process with the sound of thunder.

I recommend the Noise Phobia series from Victoria Stilwell (read more here Music-for-dogs/canine-noise-phobia-series/ ) You can get them as downloads here: Music shop

Calming activities to lower anxiety in general.

Massage. If you are familiar with Tellington T Touch, it may be a good idea to practice it. If you are not familiar with it you can read about it here: https://ttouch.com/

Massage is good because body contact releases feel-good-chemicals such as oxytocin and helps calm both the dog and the guardian.

Here are a couple of links to learn more about the benefits of massage and how to do it: https://youtu.be/7wXdEmBDUQE

The Benefits of Canine Massage: How and Why to Massage Your Dog

Work on things like relaxation protocols that could help keep your dog’s general anxiety lowered: https://www.karenoverall.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Protocol-for-relaxation_Overall.pdf

Promoting Relaxation by giving chews, lickimats, kongs, snuffle boxes/mats and treat searches around the house can all help facilitate a calmer state. Your dog may then be more likely to enjoy an exercise such as settle on a mat, where you can build relaxation.

And here you will find a Facebook post I did about how to generally calm down your dogs: https://www.facebook.com/tinashappyhounds/how-to-calm-your-dog-down

Keep yourself calm.

A study in herding dogs showed that dogs mirror the long-term stress of their owners (Sundman et al. 2021). And previously acute stress has also been shown to be synchronized between humans and dogs with a close relationship (Buchanan et al. 2012).

In other words, your own stress rubs off on your dog. The calmer you are (not just through fireworks and thunder but in general) the calmer your dog will be. If you are stressed in general, then consider how you can work on your own stress levels to help yourself and your dog. (I would suggest things like mindfulness, meditation, or breathing exercises. But I digress).

Prevention.

If you just got a new puppy who hasn’t experienced fireworks or thunder yet, then prevention is key. I would follow the music desensitization steps as outlined above. This is what I did with my own dog shortly after we got her (in September of 2021), and she handles both fireworks and thunder quite well.

Sadly, a number of dogs develop fear of noises, and the risk increases with age, but we can do a lot to prevent that by introducing noises at a tolerable level throughout the critical socialization period.

Here are some resources on prevention training for you to have a read through:

Six ways to prepare your dog for fireworks– Eileen Andersson https://eileenanddogs.com/6-ways-to-prepare-your-dog-for-fireworks/

Fear, fireworks and neuroplasticity – what you should never do when your dog is afraid -Jennifer Cattet http://blog.smartanimaltraining.com/2015/06/30/fear-fireworks-neuroplasticity-what-you-should-never-do-when-your-dog-is-afraid/

Thunder phobia and sound sensitivities – Patricia McConnell https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/thunder-phobia-in-dogs

Summer sounds – how to help your dog through scary noises – Karen Pryor Clicker Training https://www.clickertraining.com/Help-Dog-Cope-With-Loud-Noises

Dealing with fireworks anxiety – Victoria Stilwell https://positively.com/dog-behavior/behavior-problems/fears-and-phobias/noise-phobias/fireworks-phobia/

Preventing thunder phobia in dogs – Tonya Wilhelm https://raisingyourpetsnaturally.com/preventing-thunder-phobia-in-dogs/

Also, there is a great Facebook post here by the Mutty Professor: Fireworks-be-proactive-not-reactive

Signs of fear.

For some dogs the signs of fear are very obvious. They may be pacing, salivating excessively, trying to climb on to your lap or shaking uncontrollably and even urinating and defecating inside the house.

But there are more subtle signs to look out for as well. These could be dilated pupils, excessive lip licking, yawning more than usual, panting, seeking attention, hiding, whale eye or as simple as not wanting their food.

Some dogs with noise-phobias are also more prone to developing separation anxiety, so it is really worth working on prevention and treatment if you have a noise sensitive dog. Here is a link on more about noise phobia and how to eliminate it: https://illis.se/en/eliminating-firework-and-thunder-phobia-in-dogs/

Not all dogs are the same.

That’s a lot of information I’ve thrown at you. Why haven’t I given you simple training protocol to use? That is because all dogs are individual sentient beings with feelings and a personal experience of the world. They will obviously not react the same way to things. So, it may be a case of you having to try out different techniques to help your dog overcome his fear of fireworks or thunder.

Final words – if your dog is fearful, comfort him, reassure him and be there for him. It will help even though you may not see it in his behavior right away. And – you can’t reinforce fear according to Patricia McConnell: https://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/you-cant-reinforce-fear-dogs-and-thunderstorms

Thanks for reading and feel free to get in touch at tina@tinashappyhounds.dk if you need my help.

References:

Sundman, AS., Van Poucke, E., Svensson Holm, AC. et al. Long-term stress levels are synchronized in dogs and their owners. Sci Rep 9, 7391 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43851-x

Tony W. Buchanan tbuchan7@slu.edu , Sara L. Bagley , R. Brent Stansfield & Stephanie D. Preston (2012) The empathic, physiological resonance of stress, Social Neuroscience, 7:2, 191-201, DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2011.588723