Fireworks, Fear, and Why You Are Probably Making It Worse
Let's talk about fireworks.
Every Fourth of July I hear the same thing.
"My dog loses its mind when the fireworks start."
I believe it.
The first firecracker goes off, your dog freezes, starts shaking, pants, or heads straight under the bed. Then your first instinct is to go comfort your dog.
That is where most people accidentally make the problem worse.
Your dog is watching you. It does not care nearly as much about the words you are saying as it does about your body language, your tone, and your energy.
If your dog is scared and you immediately start petting it, making eye contact, and saying, "It's okay, it's okay," your dog is thinking, "My leader is worried too. I was right to be scared."
Without meaning to, you just reinforced the fear.
So what should you do?
Less.
Less eye contact.
Less talking.
Less touching.
Stay relaxed and go about your evening like nothing unusual is happening.
Keep an eye on your dog, but do not make your dog the center of attention.
If your dog heads for the bedroom and tries to crawl under the bed, bring it back out. If you need to, put on a head collar and leash, but keep the leash loose. Do not drag your dog around. Just keep it with you.
If your dog freezes or starts shaking, get it moving.
Walk into the kitchen.
Walk back into the living room.
Sit down for a minute.
Get up and walk another lap around the house.
Movement changes your dog's focus. Then another firework goes off, and you simply repeat the process.
People tell me all the time they crawled under the bed with their dog because they wanted to comfort it.
Think about what your dog sees.
If the leader crawls under the bed, then this really must be something to fear.
Your dog does not understand that you are trying to comfort it. It understands that your energy has changed.
Your job is to show your dog that there is nothing to worry about.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to keep moving and stay calm.
We do the same thing with dogs at our facility.
If the fireworks get loud, we do not leave nervous dogs sitting in a kennel where they can start associating that kennel with fear. We get them outside in the yard, throw a ball, take a walk, or just keep them engaged until things settle down.
Dogs make associations with everything around them. If they are terrified while sitting in a kennel, they may start thinking the kennel is part of the problem.
We also work with dogs through fireworks instead of avoiding them.
I have taken dogs that were terrified of fireworks out on walks with a head collar and a slack leash. We are not walking into the middle of fireworks. We stay on the outside of the activity, keep moving, and do not let the dog stop and fixate on every explosion.
If a firework goes off, I might glance toward the sound, but I never look at the dog.
I just keep walking.
Pretty soon, the dog starts watching me instead of the fireworks.
That is exactly what you want.
You want your dog thinking, "If you're not worried, I do not need to be worried either."
You can even practice this before the Fourth of July.
The next time your dog is in the kitchen, knock a pot lid onto the floor.
Do not look at your dog.
Do not talk to your dog.
Just pick the pot lid up and go back to what you were doing.
The first time, your dog might jump.
The next time, it may only hesitate.
Eventually, it walks over, sniffs the pot lid, and moves on because it has learned the noise does not matter.
When I was training bird dogs, I used balloons all the time. I would pop balloons while puppies were eating or playing, so loud noises became normal instead of something to fear.
That is the goal.
Not to convince your dog that fireworks are fun.
Just to teach your dog they are not worth reacting to.
If you live in San Francisco or any busy city, loud noises are part of life. Fireworks, motorcycles, construction, sirens, barking dogs. You are not going to avoid them.
The better solution is to teach your dog how to stay calm when they happen.
And that starts with you.