You may not be affected by this yourself, but explosions, cracks, and pops may seem like the end of the world to your furred pal. Assuming that your furry friend shakes and shivers through storms, or tucks away under the bed each and every Fourth of July, here are several measures you can take to help.
Safety
Help your dog find her happy place. If you’re at home, think about the places your pet dog naturally goes to relax and keep them open for her. If her safe space is a crate, leave the door open so she doesn’t hurt herself trying out to get out.
Treatment Methods for Noise Apprehension
Various treatment methods work for various dogs. The overall performance at lessening symptoms, there are other concerns to consider when evaluating which treatment option may be best for your puppy. It’s also normal for a mixture of treatment methods to subsequently be the most helpful for a specific dogs.
1. Change the Puppy’s Surrounding
Try out creating a safe haven for your puppy (such as a blanket-covered crate) or finding a location that will minimize the noise quantity. If you know an event is coming (e.g. thunderstorms or fireworks), try out giving your pooch a lot of physical exercises in advance.
2. Pressure Wraps
A “pressure wrap” is anything that wraps around the puppy’s upper body and chest to ensure regular, gentle pressure.
No one knows for sure, but it’s probably a mix of making the puppy feel soothed and secure and diverting the puppy from concentrating on whatever it fears. Pressure wraps normally display good results with the 1st usage, although, some pet dogs necessitate two, three, or more usages before you see decreased or eliminated symptoms.
3. Therapy
Desensitization is the most frequent behavior modification attempted for noise stress. In a nutshell, in an organized environment, you begin by exposing your dog to a low quantity of noise that bothers her.
4. Medications
If your puppy’s stress is severe enough, there are a wide array of prescription medications that your vet may recommend. Some are given on a regular basis for the life of the pet dog.
What not to do
- Do not attempt to reassure your puppy when they are scared. Instead, try out to behave normally, as if you don’t notice their fearfulness.
- Do not put your puppy in a crate to prevent them from being destructive during a thunderstorm. They’ll still be fearful when they’re in the crate and is probably to injure themselves, perhaps even severely, while attempting to get out of the crate.
- Do not discipline your pet dog for being nervous. Punishment will only make them more fearful.
- Do not aim to force your puppy to experience or be close to the sound that frightens them. Making them stay close to a group of youngsters who are igniting firecrackers will only make them more nervous, and could cause them to become disruptive in an attempt to get away from the situation.
If your dog is still nervous, the animal will continue to present that fear in whatever way it can whether by digging, jumping, climbing, chewing, barking, or howling. Know that formal training won’t make your dog less scared of thunder or other noises, although it could help boost their general confidence.
When all else stops working
If your dog has serious fears and phobic disorders and you’re powerless to obtain success with the procedures we’ve summarized here, you ought to meet with an animal-behavior practitioner and your vet for assistance at soothing your dog’s fear of loud noises.