Caring for your dog and managing stress through fireworks season
Five top tips on managing your dog through fireworks season to help keep their stress levels down and keep them calm and content through the horrid bangs and explosions this winter.
- Natural support
- Create safe spaces indoors & outside
- Stay calm and stay in
- A bit of muzak
- Distraction tactics
- Long-term de-sensitisation training
1. Natural support
If you have a dog that suffers from anxiety, especially around fireworks season, there are natural supplements available that are proven to calm and can help our dogs deal with stress better.
Our friends at Dorwest have an excellent and trusted range with 87%* of dog owners seeing less fireworks anxiety with their best selling Scullcap & Valerian Tablets. Dorwest recommends starting the tablets as soon as possible as best results are seen after a 28 day period alongside behavioural training.
For situations where you are ‘caught out’ or require a top up to the tablets, Valerian Compound contains pure extracts of three herbs in liquid form which ensures it acts quickly by calming within 30 minutes and lasting up to two hours.
Dorwest is the leading provider of natural healthcare solutions for pets since 1948, with their herbal calming products supporting the calming pathways within the nervous system, helping to reduce anxiety without the drowsiness.
In very serious cases, where nothing you do seems to help ease your dog’s fear and negative reaction to fireworks, we suggest you chat to your vet as they may be able to prescribe something to help.
*2022 trial conducted with University of Cambridge Department (unpublished data, full data available on request).
2. Create safe spaces outdoors and in
Fireworks and sudden flashes of light can trigger a flight response in dogs so make sure you check that all areas of your garden are secure, and when out walking in the dark, if there's any chance your dog might bolt if frightened then stick to on-lead walks only. Agria Insurance reports 35% more dogs go missing in the weeks either side of 5 November so it's a very real risk to mitigate against.
Take extra care to keep your dog'safe outdoors, even in your own garden, as a frightened dog is a flight risk. Make sure your dog is wearing an ID tag at all times (a lightweight House Collar is brilliant for this), and that their microchip registration details are up to date.
Indoors, make sure your dog has a cosy, safe space indoors to retreat to if they are nervous. There is heaps of inspiration across our site for creating a seriously cosy and comfy dog bed from our Crate Bedding to the cocoon-like Ducky Donut Beds dressed with Faux-Fur Blankets to our Snuggle Beds for dogs that love to burrow and heaps more too.
A high-wall dog bed with a super-cosy blanket is a simple way to create a comforting bed for your dog to retreat to when feeling anxious. Shown here our Deeply Dishy Bed with Sherpa Fleece Blanket in Teddy Beige .
- Place your dog's bed somewhere sheltered to give them a better sense of security, for example under a table or kitchen island, or in between a sofa and armchair.
- Keep your dog's bed away from doors to the outside world and windows through this season.
- If your dog seems to do better close to you when stressed then make sure their bed is moved to a quiet and preferenably sheltered spot close to where you will be.
- Do not put your dog in a room and shut the door as that could make them more stressed. Dogs need the option to flee when stressed.
3. Stay calm and stay in
The calmer and more normal you are when the fireworks are going off, the better for your dog - even if you are in bits at the sight of your dog being afraid. Dogs can feel our vibes so if we panic at the first bang because we’re afraid that the noise will upset our dogs then our dogs pick up on it and it can make things worse for the dogs. Excessive fussing can also make your dog more anxious so offer gentle, calm re-assurance and don't crowd them.
On the worst nights for fireworks, stay in with your dog if possible so they have the reassurance of your company. If that’s not possible and you have a particularly anxious or nervous dog, ask a neighbour, friend or family member to sit with them.
Small adjustments at this time of year may also make sense. Walk your dog earlier in the day or earlier in the evening and time outdoor loo breaks to happen before the main fireworks kick off in your area - change feeding times to help with this if necessary. Basically keep your dog indoors when the fireworks are likely to be going off.
4. A bit of muzak!
Once it gets dark, draw the curtains and put on some calming doggie music to keep the outside world outside. Turn up the volume to keep outside noise at bay and the calming music should help to relax your dog.
There are heaps of online resources that have music programmes that are specifically aimed at calming dogs. Relax My Dog on YouTube has programmes that will play continuously for over ten hours - listen carefully and you will hear not only classical music but subtle dog noises at various points too. In the UK, Classic FM will often run a special broadcast of Pet Classics around 5 November.
5. Distraction tactics
Licking and chewing are self-soothing actions for dogs that release endorphins in their brains and can help them to de-stress and feel more relaxed. Anything you can do to encourage your dog to lick or chew, can help them to de-stress. Check out our selection of natural, long-lasting dog chews.
A long-lasting chew can help to de-stress your dog. Brutus loves chewing 100% natural Chew Roots - a chunk of non-splintering tree root that is sustainably harvested: Natural Chew Roots
"Find it" games that require lots of sniffing (sniffing is amazing mental exercise for a dog) are also brilliant - hide heaps of tasty dog treats around a room and send your dog to sniff them out - give them some easy finds as well as trickier finds to keep them interested.
6. Long-term de-sensitisation training
The best solution is a longer-term solution approach: de-sensitising your dog to fireworks and loud noises, It's not difficult to do but it has to be done over a longish period of time. The idea is you first introduce them to firework-type noises at very low volumes so they get used to them and eventually build up to associating the noises with fun, positive experiences.
Battersea Dogs Home has a fantastic video showing how to approach de-sensitising your dog to loud bangs such as fireworks:
We’ll be practising all these tips with our dogs, and we hope they help your dog get through firework season a little easier. See you on the other side!
