dogs & bonfire night

[osh]

Hi all,

With this time of year we get lots of fireworks going off for days on end either side of bonfire night.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to calm our dog down. He gets quite agitated at the fireworks going off every couple of minutes.

Suggestions welcome, Ta

[Eels]

Make him a den - somewhere easily accessible in a room he's happy, often under a table or between two chairs is good. Make it cosy and comfortable, try to cover it with a duvet to muffle sound, and feed him some special treats in there a few times a day, so that he learns to associate it with good things.

Feed him a carbohydrate-rich meal about half an hour before dark - something like a bowl of rice or pasta is fine (just remember to subtract some from his other feeds so he doesn't get fat!). This makes the dog feel sleepy and relaxed. At the same time, draw your curtains, close windows and play music with a beat. These things help to stop the dog reacting to fireworks in the first place.

Ask your vet to get you a DAP diffuser - this releases calming pheromones into the environment and can help some dogs to calm down. It's a good idea to start using this well in advance of the firework season.

Finally, and most importantly, you must try very hard to ignore your dog's fearful behaviour. What to you is just reassurance is actually a reward to your dog - in effect, by petting and cuddling the worried animal, you are telling the dog that he is right to be frightened - when we all know that it's nothing to be scared of!

My suggestion would be to start thinking about a long-term solution in January, to desensitise your dog to the problem, and hopefully remove the necessity for all these changes around November! Your vet will advise or refer you, but there are helpful CDs and behaviour modification guides available.

[mimififi]

you could try some rescue remedy too from health food shop. It is ok for pets to use. I think it is the Bach, five flowers one maybe. Go to H/F shop and they will tell you.
Never used them myself, so can't actually voich for them. I have a GSD and she is totally fine with loud noises, would have been perfect as a K9 as she so would have passed the firearms test.

She is afraid of the hoover! some toughie she turned out to be.

[drgnrdr]

That's great info, check out this website for more:

http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/fear-thunder.pdf

[orange-gnome]

Well, I have a jack russell who is incredibly territorial and loves to have a woof at anything that he thinks might be a threat to his house. Of course he thinks that fireworks fall into this category and what I do with him every year at about this time is to take him to a window upstairs and show him the fireworks, I remain very calm and tell him its ok in a calm sounding voice, he sees the what the fireworks are and sees that I don't think they are a threat to our home and he settles down quite merrily. I have to do it every year but I just take half an hour on the first day it happens to reassure him and he is fine for the whole rest of the firework period. Worth a try!

[Typhoid]

Put music on quite loudly in as many rooms as you can to drown out the noise of the fireworks and try to ignore the scared behaviour, start playing with him instead and ignore the fireworks yourself, if you aren't bothered it calms him down :-)