Guaranteed Ways to Help your Dog Deal with their Fear of Fireworks!

Thousands of dogs suffer every year living with anxiety about fireworks and dogs owners make an impact on that anxiety.

What? Really?

Let me explain…

Dog’s see the world very differently than human’s do and how dogs deal with situations is important to know if we are going to help them.

If we had a child and there was a storm, we would cuddle the child, stroke their hair and tell them “it’s ok, it’s just a thunderstorm, it’ll be over soon.” Because the child understands our language, they understand the conversation between parent and child.

A dog is very different. When we pet a dog, we are telling the dog “yes, the human wants this state of mind”

If we pet and cuddle a dog during a thunderstorm what they are hearing from us is “yes when you hear the boom in the sky, I want a fearful state of mind.”

If this repeat numerous times, then it becomes and lifestyle for the dog. Thunderstorms represent a fearful state of mind.

You get what you pet.

 So how can you help your dog during a thunderstorm?

• Most importantly – DO NOT PET YOUR DOG or make a big deal about it
• If your dog is trained, you can place your dog and let them work through it psychologically
• If your dog is crate trained, you can put them in a crate and in a noisy room like a laundry room and turn the washer/dryer on to drown out the noise
• If your dog is treadmill trained, you can put them on the treadmill and have them walk. A dog can’t focus on the sky when they are focused on the ground moving under their feet.
• Leave your dog at home if your dog has issues with fireworks. You’ll just stress them out more.
• Desensitize your dog to fireworks. You can purchase cds or find online videos (you tube, spotify) of the noise of fireworks that you can play repeatedly. That way the noise of fireworks just becomes a noise in the house, like your fridge or furnace turning on.