Managing firework fear and noise phobia in pets can be quite a challenge, but with patience, preparation, and a few tips, it is indeed possible. Follow my tips below for a calmer fireworks season:
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In advance
If your pet is anxious or noise-phobic and tends to get stressed at the whizzing, popping, and screaming of fireworks, consider starting desensitisation training as soon as possible after this season to prepare for the next season.
Prepare by speaking to your veterinary clinic about noise phobia and appropriate anti-anxiety medication in advance of fireworks night. And consider seeking help from a qualified veterinary behaviourist to aid with counterconditioning.
Desensitisation Training
Desensitisation audio is available online or to purchase as a CD. Create a safe space for your pet to snuggle in a warm bed, with some of their favourite toys and perhaps a snack. Dim the lights and close the curtains simulating firework night preparation, ensuring a nice calm, relaxed environment before starting the audio. Initiate the sound as barely audible background noise; gradually increasing the volume over weeks and months, to slowly reduce your pet’s reaction to sound stimuli over time. The key is to increase the volume very slowly so as to not create panic or anxiety. If your pet shows signs of stress, go back a few steps and take things slower. You will get there.
Most dogs would benefit from additional input and training alongside audio desensitisation. A qualified veterinary behaviourist would be able to advise on training tools and methods.
Counterconditioning
Counterconditioning is one such tool behaviourists may recommend and work with you to achieve. It involves training your pet to change their emotional response to a source of anxiety, from a negative/ anxious response to a positive one. It is important when your pet is anxious and showing signs of stress and anxiety that you don’t overly reassure them as this can be overstimulating and counterproductive. Know when to step back and let them be, and when to positively reinforce calm and relaxed behaviour.
Medications and Remedies
Your vet may suggest remedies or medications to help with short-term anxiety, or to be part of a longer-term desensitisation training plan. What options do you have:
Natural remedies
Natural remedies can be helpful if started a few days before the stressful event and continued until a few days after. There are lots on the market that claim to offer different benefits; such as Yumove, Zylkene, Yucalm, Nutracalm, Pet Remedy, and Rescue Remedy which contain a variety of:
- L-tryptophan – A natural chemical, found in many proteins such as milk, chicken, eggs, cheese, and fish. Your pet’s body digests and breaks this down into niacin, which is essential in creating the mood-stabilising hormone serotonin. It is useful in calming and reducing stress and anxiety.
- L-theanine – A natural component of green tea, involved in dopamine function (a natural chemical involved in mood). It has been shown to have calming effects in cats and dogs.
- Melatonin – A hormone that naturally rises when your pet sleeps, helps to promote relaxation and calmness and aids sleep.
- Herbs (Chamomile, Valerian, Lemon Balm) Derived from plants; these can be useful calming supplements usually given in food or as a supplement tablet.
Calming Pheromone plug-ins
Such as Adaptil for dogs or Feliway for cats, which contain a synthetic copy of the natural appeasing pheromone created by a lactating mother to calm their young, can be comforting and reassuring. These can be plugged in all year around, used as a training aid or plugged in within 24 hrs of a stressful event.
Anti-anxiety wraps
(Thunder shirts/ tightly fitting T-shirts) can be considered. Designed to apply gentle, constant pressure to stress points and calm your pet in the same way as swaddling a baby. Some pets may not tolerate this; so try it out before the night to see whether it’ll work for your pet.
Veterinary Medications
Medicines can be prescribed by your vet for particularly anxious pets. Anti-anxiety medications are generally either fast-acting, short-term medications such as Diazepam/ Xanax; or daily dosing medications relying on the cumulative effect of regular dosing, and so require a little more planning to use such as Gabapentin.
Fast – Acting, Short-Term medication:
- Diazepam – Is a drug in the class of benzodiazepine sedatives. It works by depressing parts of the central nervous system and so preventing anxiety escalation. This should be given to pets 30-60 minutes prior to a known stressful event such as fireworks. Side effects include lethargy, sedation, incoordination, increased appetite, agitation, and aggression.
- Alprazolam –A benzodiazepine sedative type drug most effective when given at the earliest sign of anxiety or ideally 30-60 mins prior to exposure to stress. Side effects include lethargy, sedation, incoordination, and increased appetite.
Cumulative medication requiring daily dosing:
- Gabapentin – Is a human medication and so its use in pets is off-label. (Meaning that it is prescribed as per the veterinary cascade as there is no appropriate licenced medication for use in pets for the intended use). Known as an antiseizure medication, it is also useful for noise phobias such as firework fear. Gabapentin decreases the excitatory brain chemicals to keep pets calm and stops anxiety building. Side effects include sedation and loss of coordination.
As with any medication or drug, you should always seek advice from your veterinary surgeon before giving them to your pet. Even natural products could be harmful in the wrong quantities or in circumstances of pre-existing illness.
Firework Night Itself
- Tire them out – Take dogs on a nice long walk earlier in the day and play with cats to tire them out mentally and physically. Pets that are well-exercised are less likely to be reactive.
- Get them settled – Feed them earlier in the evening, bringing them into the house before fireworks are expected to start. Reducing exposure, reduces anxiety.
- Create a safe space – Create a calm, quiet environment for your pet to relax in, consider closing the curtains to limit any flashes that may startle them and reduce stimulation. Include toys, a comfy bed, and their favourite treat in their safe space to make them as comfortable as possible, reducing anxiety.
- Familiar background noise such as the TV, the radio, music, or white noise, can be soothing and create a calmer environment to naturally reduce stress levels as well as being useful in disguising the unfamiliar and unpredictable pops, bangs and whizzes that overstimulate and upset our pets.
- Keep calm and carry on. Try not to molly-coddle your pet too much, being overly reassuring can contribute to overstimulation and exacerbate anxiety in the face of stress, so where possible keep to routines and ensure a lighter stress-free atmosphere.
- Distraction and redirection can be a good technique if your pet is receptive to interaction or has a low level of anxiety, consider playing with a toy or introducing a puzzle feeder.
As ever, if you are concerned about fireworks night and your cat or dog, speak to your veterinarian about options to help keep them calm and happy.
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