Now the nights are drawing in and Christmas merchandise is appearing in the shops, we know it is also the time when fireworks begin to make an appearance. No longer is it just one night of the year; the firework ‘season’ seems to now go from early October through to the New Year and beyond. Fear of fireworks and noise phobias can seriously affect a pet’s quality of life and are common problems that I am often asked for advice about.

So what’s the difference between a fear and a phobia? Fear is “an unpleasant emotional caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm. It is a basic survival mechanism. Phobia is intense and “an extreme or irrational fear causing avoidance or panic”

It isn’t surprising that dogs can develop fears and phobias around noise. After all, dogs hear at a wider range of frequencies than us. They have a high sensitivity to noise and can pick up and perceive sounds four times that of humans’ hearing ability. What we can hear at 20 feet away, a dog can at 80 feet.

Many dogs have difficulty coping with loud noises and many are presented to behaviour specialists for the treatment of excessive fear responses. In a survey, 49% of owners questioned reported their dogs were frightened of loud noises and 45% said their dogs showed fearful behaviour when hearing fireworks.*

How do fears and phobias develop?

Animals respond to noise by first orientating towards it and the brain is engaged in looking for a pattern to the noise to try to identify where it is coming from. If the animal is scared by the noise the first time it is heard, it will want to try to escape or avoid it. Any noise heard the first time that causes fear and a dog to react defensively it will take longer for the dog to become accustomed to the noise.

Dogs can be born sensitive to noise or they have a breed propensity to noise fear. A fear of noise can also develop after a dog has a traumatic experience coupled with a loud noise. Common traumatic experiences for dogs are fireworks and thunder storms. Noise fears and phobias can be caused as a result of a lack of exposure to bangs, traffic and loud noise early in life, or through repeated experiences without being able to escape the noise. Any phobia is also partly learned through a dog’s experience.  

What are the symptoms?

The symptoms presented will depend on the severity of noise fear/phobia, but can include:

• Hiding or cowering
• Trying to escape: digging at carpets, clawing at door frames/floors, jumping through open windows, running away
• Urinating and/or defecating
• Pacing, shaking or cowering
• Being ‘clingy’ towards owner
• Refusing to go for a walk or to go outside
• Refusing to eat
• Vocalising
• Expressing anal glands in extreme fear
• Panting, drooling

What can you do to help your pet cope?

There are a number of things you can do to help, including:

• Walk your dog earlier in the day and ‘toilet’ them before it gets dark
• Keep cats indoors and provide litter trays
• Cover rabbits’ and guinea pigs’ cages
• Keep windows covered so flashes cannot be seen
• Mask external noise by keeping the TV or radio on quite loudly
• Provide a covered den but make sure it’s not adjacent to an outside wall
• Place comfortable bedding and blankets there to help muffle sounds
• Use an Adaptil or Feliway diffuser plugged in near your pet’s resting/sleeping areas
• Give food activity toys and chews, especially novel ones
• Reassuring your dog with smooth, slow strokes and close proximity helps them feel safe
• Reward your pet with treats when they appear relaxed
• Feeding your dog a carbohydrate-rich meal can induce sleepiness

For the more fearful dog, you may want to consider a Thundershirt. I have seen good results with dogs wearing these, and in my own dog. The Thundershirt is a snug-fitting garment that applies constant pressure around the dog’s body, similar to the effect of swaddling a baby. This constant pressure has a calming effect on the nervous system and can help to create a calmer mood state in dogs. The Thundershirt is a recommended drug-free option for calming a dog.

It is too late this year’s fireworks, but for dogs that are very scared by fireworks you can help to desensitise them to scary noises by playing a special CD. These have a range of sounds other than fireworks, such as traffic noise, rain and thunder, gun shots, trains, aircrafts and other loud noises that your pet may encounter and be frightened of. When used correctly, noise CDs can help to treat and prevent sound phobias. You can find some the products that I recommend in the Equipment & Supplies section of my online shop.If your dog’s noise fear cannot be avoided, or the problem is worsening over time then you may want to consider professional help from a behavioural counsellor. This may be because the fear of loud noise has generalised to other noises or your dog becomes too stressful when they hear the noise. Be sure to contact a qualified behaviourist who is able to help you. Many dogs are helped with noise fear or phobia and make good improvement.

Fireworks can be fun for humans however many pets suffer the consequences of loud bangs. Therefore we must make sure we do all we can to help them through it.

Blackwell et al., (2007) ‘Firework fears and phobias in the domestic dog’ RSPCA