Just a thought, keep your pets indoors when there's fireworks happening in the area. Lots of pets get lost on the 4th of July. Every few years we end up taking in a stray for a day or two 'til we find the home it came from.
...and of course there's this:
Have fun and remember, once your fingers come off, it's really hard to get them back on.
I got my pooch a thundershirt. It doesn't solve the problem, but helps a ton.
I can't believe the crazy size of fireworks that are going off in my neighborhood about 30 miles north of Atlanta. They are better than the ones that the town shot off when I was a kid.
back to the topic, thankfully our chocolate lab is indifferent to the small bombs going off.
Ever since PA changed the laws about fireworks, seems like everyone has the big stuff now. 10 years ago we had bottle rockets and pinwheels. When I was a kid we couldn't even get Roman Candles.
Now people have nearly professional-grade fireworks in their back yard.
it was crazy here last night ,
probably more than 1000 explosions within a couple blocks , lasting almost 2 hours .
More than anytime , and not one cop car .
it was scary ,
Remember July 5th is for DAs that passed out too early on July 4th to set off their fireworks.
Stampie said:Remember July 5th is for DAs that passed out too early on July 4th to set off their fireworks.
Yeah, we got tons of those. Idiots setting off repeating mortars at 3 a.m. Still hearing the random artillery blast today at 11-12 noon. I just got fountains for the grandson to keep from freaking out our dog anymore than necessary. Poor thing had PTSD all night.
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:Stampie said:Remember July 5th is for DAs that passed out too early on July 4th to set off their fireworks.
Yeah, we got tons of those. Idiots setting off repeating mortars at 3 a.m. Still hearing the random artillery blast today at 11-12 noon. I just got fountains for the grandson to keep from freaking out our dog anymore than necessary. Poor thing had PTSD all night.
See my post in the rant thread.
Luckily, I guess, we don't have any dogs right now. Unluckily, caring for the dog(s) gave my wife something to do and seemed to keep her own ptsd in check.
My Danes are reasonably chill but we did melatonin them to ensure chillaxation.
Oddly, my cats, including one who is scared of heavy rain, even if there isn't thunder, don't care too much about fireworks. Still, it was pretty nuts in our neighborhood of quarter acre plots. I remember having to go out into the country to fire off anything more than fountains and sparklers.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:When I was a kid we couldn't even get Roman Candles...
LA fire department blew up a pile of fireworks the other day and blew a 500 pound containment cover 4 blocks away,
if you watch the video there is a box holding huge firecrackers the size of an quart oil can
there was 5000 pounds of fireworks in the that garage !
At least I didn't hear any gunfire this year. One year, either Independence Day, or New Year's Eve, I heard a bullet hit the house while I was in bed. It hit the brick on the outside of our bedroom.
We used to hear quite a lot of gunfire here (although nothing like the nonstop three hours of shooting that I experienced in Tucson once).
One of the the rental houses on the next street got new residents. I had thought the former residents had been one of the sources of the shooting.
I wish a Thundershirt worked on our dog. We give him prescription medicine and he still has issues.
Fireworks aren't even legal in city limits but no one does anything even though idiots set them off until all hours of the night.
In reply to 93EXCivic :
I wish thunder shirts lived up to their marketing, but in my experience they rarely make much of a difference. A combination of behavior therapy and medication is often helpful.
Here in FL we have months of near daily thunderstorms. Many of my patients have some degree of noise phobia.
As mentioned above, allowing the dogs (or sometimes, cats) a hiding place is often helpful.
For more behavior modification suggestions,
veterinarypartner.com is a great source of information, and where I get most of my client education articles. The link is to the fear of fireworks article.
I recommend bookmarking the website for your searches on other topics.
This year, our older dog Holly decided that she's now afraid of thunder and fireworks. In years prior, she could care less, but something triggered in her dog brain and she starts shaking uncontrollably at the slightest boom. The past week or so it's been nonstop, with thunderstorms rolling through and crazy professional explosives ever since. Last night, the neighborhood sounded like a warzone. Holly was not pleased. Our puppy Olive does not care and even tries to get Holly to play with her when she's afraid to distract her, but it doesn't help.
Also, fireworks are illegal in the entire state of MA, but local police don't usually care on the 4th unless you are being a real idiot. Noise ordinance caps at 10PM, and we had insanely loud stuff going off until about 1AM last night. Stuff is still going off right now. Holly is not a happy camper. And she hates vests/harnesses, so yeah...
My question: where the hell do these guys get these things? When I was a kid, and we had "a guy" get us "good" fireworks in the big fireworks stores in NH or down South, we had nothing even close to what people have been setting off the past couple years. The most destructive we had were "1/4 sticks" or "M-80's" that we would stuff into all sorts of crap to blow up. These things sound like the dynamite they used to blow through a rocky area nearby to level and create a new housing development, but louder! Are people just making their own stuff or something?
I wish the neighborhood dogs weren't barking 10 straight hours a day the other 364 days a year.
on a tangent to this subject, I wonder how people can take their dogs to various motorsport events and obliviously make them endure the volume levels/frequencies associated...
I berkeleying hate the incessant fireworks for weeks on end. It's made things difficult with our pup. He's gotten really anxious about going outside in the afternoons and evenings.
No messes inside yet, but this is tiring having to fight to get him to go outside.
We were driving home July 4 and passed a few fireworks. The pup wasn't happy.
And, of course, people shot off more last night. Again, not a happy pup.
stroker said:on a tangent to this subject, I wonder how people can take their dogs to various motorsport events and obliviously make them endure the volume levels/frequencies associated...
My Malamute hated rotary engines. To the point that he wanted to eat a rather noisy RX7 race car at one event. He kept barking and growling at it. He doesn't seem to have a problem with other engines. Even unmuffled ones.
do they make pet ear muffs ? or something to flatten out the sound ?
on the 4th it was not too bad for me as it was a block away , sometimes the explosions are in the underground parking across the street ,
But just wondering if service dogs go deaf when they are in an area with too much noise or if they have some kind of ear protection ?
I Love it. So does my dog.
In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
We have tried training and the doctor prescribed some medicine for aneixty which has helped but he still has issues. We have attempted to give him somewhere to hide. He doesn't seem to want anything to do with that.
93EXCivic said:In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :
We have tried training and the doctor prescribed some medicine for aneixty which has helped but he still has issues. We have attempted to give him somewhere to hide. He doesn't seem to want anything to do with that.
We tried everything and the one thing that seems to help our fella the most, with the least side effects, is I go to the pot shop and get him some cbd edible gummies, usually give him half dose. Helps him so much, and he just seems really happy and affectionate.
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