Fireworks and Dogs: A Plan That Starts Before November
Around half of UK dogs are frightened of fireworks. Most advice arrives too late to help. Here is what to do in October, on the night, and afterwards.
Fireworks season is genuinely miserable for a lot of dogs. Survey figures usually put the proportion of UK dogs showing fear of fireworks at somewhere around half, which makes it one of the most common welfare problems there is.
The frustrating thing about most fireworks advice is that it appears on the fourth of November, by which point the useful part of the window has closed. So this is organised by when to do it.
Now, whenever now is
Build the den early. Somewhere small, enclosed and dark. Under a table with a blanket over it, a covered crate with the door left open, the space behind the sofa. Put their bed in it and feed the odd meal there so it becomes genuinely theirs.
The critical detail: they must be able to leave. A confined frightened dog can panic and injure themselves. This is a refuge, not a containment.
Start desensitisation. Sound recordings of fireworks exist for exactly this. Play them at a volume so low your dog barely notices, while something good happens like dinner or a chew. Increase the volume across weeks, dropping back if they react. This genuinely works and it is the only approach that changes the underlying fear rather than managing around it.
It needs weeks. Started in October it helps. Started on the day it does nothing.
Talk to your vet, in advance. If your dog was badly affected last year, medication is worth discussing. Modern options are considerably better than sedatives that flatten the body while leaving the fear intact. But it needs a consultation and a prescription beforehand, not a panicked call at six on the evening of the fifth.
Check the microchip details. Fireworks night is one of the worst nights of the year for lost dogs, and a startling number of chips have out-of-date phone numbers. Two minutes online.
The week before
Walk earlier. Well before dusk, all week. Bonfire night is rarely confined to one night.
Check local displays so you know which evenings to plan around.
Do the boring stuff. Curtains you can close fully, a room away from windows, blankets to hand.
On the night
Feed early, before the noise starts. A frightened dog will not eat, and you would rather they had dinner in them.
Toilet break before dark, on a lead even in a secure garden. Panicked dogs get over fences they have never previously considered.
Close everything. Curtains, windows, cat flaps, doors. Draw it all before the first bang rather than after.
Mask the sound. Television, radio, music. Steady background noise blunts the sudden onset, which is the part that startles.
Let them hide. If your dog wants to be under the bed, let them be under the bed. Do not drag them out to reassure them.
Comfort them if they want it. The old advice that comforting a frightened dog reinforces the fear is wrong and has been abandoned by every behaviourist worth listening to. Fear is an emotion, not a behaviour, and you cannot reward it into existence. If your dog comes to you, be a reassuring presence. If they want to be alone, let them.
Stay calm yourself. Dogs read us extremely well. Anxious hovering makes it worse.
Do not take them to a display. Ever. It is not a treat.
What not to do
Do not punish barking or hiding. Do not shut them in a room alone as a solution. Do not use a sedative left over from something else without asking your vet. Do not assume a dog who was fine last year will be fine this year, since noise phobia commonly develops with age.
Afterwards
Fear of fireworks tends to worsen year on year without intervention, and it often generalises to thunder, traffic and other sudden noises.
So the most useful thing you can do in the week after bonfire night is note down how your dog coped, and if it was bad, book something in. Desensitisation done in spring and summer, with no pressure and no deadline, is far more effective than anything attempted in late October.
The dogs who cope best are almost always the ones whose owners started nine months early.
A long-lasting chew in the den, given early in the evening before the noise starts, gives a slightly unsettled dog something to do. It will not fix real fear, but it helps at the mild end. Comment CALM on our latest Instagram post for suggestions.
