Fireworks

Here in the UK we're on the eve of Guy Fawkes night, and as I write Presidential voting is underway in the US. These two events mean the night sky on both sides of the pond will be lit up tonight with fireworks galore. If you live in either of those 2 countries be aware of that as you walk your dog tonight and make sure you take sensible precautions.

At this time every year I either see or hear of instances where a dog has been scared out of its wits and run off in blind panic. If you have no choice but to walk your dog after dark I suggest you keep it on the lead and make it a relatively short walk. Although as a rule I advocate giving dogs as much exercise as possible, occasional very brief 'perfunctory only' walks do no harm at all. Tonight is one of those occasions.

If your dog is one of the many that are absolutely terrified of fireworks you have my sympathy. Over the years I've had two that were like that. One used to cower under the table and the other would just stick to my side like glue, tripping me up every time I moved as she tried to get right under my feet. Although the most natural thing in the world is to try and comfort and reassure the dog, by doing that I can pretty much guarantee you're not going to help matters at all. It certainly isn't going to make the dog suddenly decide that fireworks are ok after all. If anything it's simply going to reinforce the behaviour. Never forget that a dog associates the way you interract with what's happening at that moment. So in the dog's mind it will interpret your soothing caresses as a reward for cowering at the sound of a firework.

It's too late to try and recondition the dog's response for this year so you'll just have to accept you could be in for a difficult night. But the best thing you can do is just ignore the dog. If it wants to go and cower in a corner somewhere then let it. And just leave it there. Don't keep going over to give it a stroke or a cuddle - just ignore it completely.

And for future years you might want to try and recondition the dog's response to fireworks. There are tapes you can buy with recordings of fireworks. The way to use them is to play them around the house but have the sound really low at first.

Gradually over the space of weeks - or months if necessary - once the dog is happy with it you increase the volume. Like all other aspects of training the secret is to take things steady in nice easy stages that the dog is happy with. So long as you only progress at a pace the dog is happy with you can eventually reach the stage you can have the volume quite high. You might never cure the dog entirely of its phobia but even if all you manage to do is desensitise it so it's no longer as paranoid as it was you'll still hopefully reach the stage where fireworks are no longer the ordeal they used to be.

Recommended reading - "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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