Episode 344: Dogs and Fireworks

Speaker 1: Welcome to Bad Dog Agility, a podcast helping you reach all of your dog agility goals, whether it's competing under the bright lights of the televised finals at Westminster or successfully navigating a homemade course in your own backyard. We'll bring you training tips, interviews and news about the great sport of dog agility. Are you ready?

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Jenn: I'm ready.

Speaker 1: The show starts with your hosts, Jennifer, Esteban and Sarah.

Jenn: I'm Jennifer.

Esteban: I'm Esteban.

Sarah: And I'm Sarah. And this is episode 344. Today's podcast is brought to you by Saint Rocco's Treats.

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Sarah: And you can find a link to Saint Rocco's Treats on the show notes page. Today we're going to be talking about the 4th of July. It is every dog owner's favorite holiday. I'm just kidding. It's totally not. And if you're not in the United States, we're talking about a holiday that includes a lot of fireworks, and that's really the only important part about 4th of July for the purposes of this podcast. So if you live somewhere else, you can think of this as the New Year's Eve podcast or any other event that you have in your country that involves fireworks. We're going to talk about what we have done in the past, what we do now to help our dogs through fireworks. We have dogs that are thunder-phobic for sure. And of course, in my opinion, any dog that's thunder-phobic is going to have a hard time with lightning. But we also have dogs that are pretty okay with...

Esteban: Did you mean fireworks or lightning?

Sarah: Oh, fireworks. Yes. You're right.

Esteban: Okay. You said lightning.

Sarah: Got it.

Esteban: I imagine most dogs would struggle with being hit by lightning.

Sarah: That's true. That's true. Yes. Fireworks. But I think that even dogs that do okay in thunderstorms, the intensity of fireworks can be a bit much for even more dogs. So it's something that we wanted to talk about on the podcast and give our personal experiences. And it's something that you can refer back to for any holiday that might involve fireworks. So Jenn, do you have dogs that don't like fireworks?

Jenn: I am lucky in that none of my dogs have extreme reactions to them. They are aware of them, but I'm certainly not going to go on an outdoor walk with six off-leash dogs when I think fireworks may be going off, but none of mine get too worried. It's more of an awareness. And I think the quantity and closeness of them definitely seems to affect how they act as well.

Sarah: Yeah. That's a really good point because at our house, and I think one of the things that makes this so hard for us, is that our house, our backyard there is right next to a park and people go to that park and set off fireworks. So they are literally happening above our backyard, within 200 feet of being launched, 200-

Esteban: Within 50 yards.

Sarah: Yeah. Within 50 yards of our dogs.

Esteban: Half a football field for sure

Sarah: And so it is... I mean, they have jumped scared me. There have been times where I'll be outside and then it'll boom and I'll jump. It's like loud enough to jump scare me, so...

Esteban: Right. I think Jenn's onto something there with being proactive. So if Jenn's not going to walk around out there with dogs who are pretty good around thunder off-leash, then this is a great time for everyone to be very proactive. So our dogs don't really have access to the outside, but I know a lot of other people do. Through dog doors or kennels, they can get in and out. That might be the time to shut it down 3:00 in the afternoon or maybe even earlier in the day, depending on if you know people are going to be setting off certain kinds of fireworks out in the neighborhood, just be proactive and say, "Okay. I'm going to bring everybody indoors." It's like if you had a cat, especially a black cat around Halloween, you need to bring that cat inside.

Sarah: That's right.

Esteban: Right?

Sarah: Yeah. And so a lot of these things we have discovered over the years, which was another reason for this podcast. I've learned some lessons with our own dogs, and I just want to put some ideas out there that maybe you hadn't thought of or didn't really feel like you could do it. I want to give you permission to do. So one of those is how you plan your meals. So we want to have to take our dogs out as little as possible once the fireworks starts. And so one of the things that we can do that can adjust to that is how much water do we give our dogs? When do we give it to them? When do we give them their meals?

And I know a lot of people feed their dogs twice a day and it would feel shocking to them to maybe just do one meal on the 4th of July and make it early in the day, but we, Esteban and I, having had careers and worked away from the home for a lot of our dogs' lives, we have always fed our dogs only once a day. People are always shocked when we say that, but all of our dogs, their whole entire lives have been on a once a day schedule for feeding. They get water more than that, but for feeding, they only get it once a day. And we had dogs that live to 18, 17, 15. We had really... I almost thought that for a while that it was the key to their longevity. So it is possible. You can do it. And you can do it for this one day. So that is one tip that I wanted to put out there in terms of how you structure your meals.

Esteban: Yeah. Because we're talking about taking them out to the bathroom, to potty, and that's something that they just don't want to do. And so why fill them up with stuff? So...

Sarah: And make them uncomfortable or they're going to have accidents in the house?

Esteban: Yeah. And they can get through it for a day. Feed them nice and early.

Sarah: Right. And so another-

Jenn: Another-

Sarah: Oh, go ahead.

Jenn: I was going to say another thing along the lines of meals. So I don't skip a meal just because, again, my dogs aren't super worried about it, so I can take them out, but they're a little bit uneasy, is on July 4th, which is... For us, actually it's July 3rd and July 4th. So July 3rd is the big City of Columbus fireworks, which tends to mean that the suburbs aren't doing much and people, individuals, they go downtown. They go to the big party down there. But there's some stuff on July 3rd and then July 4th is the big one. I do a lot throughout the day to try to mentally wear my dogs down and give them stimulation because I want them to be tired. I want them to be relaxed. I want them to be so excited to just go in their crate and chill. So I do all of their meals around the 4th of July in some form of enrichment.

So I will freeze things and put them in Toppls and make their meal take a long time to get through. I will do puzzles. I will take their allotted food and do it throughout the day. So normally my dogs get food in the morning, food in the evening. I will do a little bit in this puzzle, a little bit in a KONG, a little bit in this puzzle. I will freeze stuff and make them freeze it and put it in a Toppl or a KONG or in ice cubes. I try to do stuff that's going to make it go throughout the day as a way, not so much to minimize needing to take them out, but as a way to give them enrichment, because I know on those days, A, I want them to be tired, but, B, I want them to wear themselves out to be and give them things that are going to distract them from the fireworks. That's what I was thinking of. I was like, there's two reasons, to wear them out and distract them.

So the more they're doing throughout the day, instead of eating their Kibble and having it done in nine seconds, like most of my shelties would do, I make it last 30 minutes and do it throughout the day. So there's some different approaches in terms of the feeding. I think being mindful of the meals and when you have to take them out is super important. I've also known people that have done just like they put their dogs up at 5:00 PM and you think, "Well, they're not going to make it until 5:00," and then they set an alarm and get up at 1:00 or 2:00 AM to take them out when most of the people have gone to bed. And I know it's like, "Oh, my gosh. I don't want to set an alarm at 1:00 or 2:00 AM, but if it's what's best for your dog in terms of safety, you set an alarm, you get up, you take them out for 15 minutes when everybody's asleep and it's quiet and you go back to bed.

So I think that's always an option for taking them out. I usually think of bringing my dogs in at post-human dinner time because that's when people start doing stuff, like, oh, dinner's over, and the kids want to set them up. So I'm like, "Okay. If people meet at 3:00 or 4:00 for a cookout, they eat dinner at 5:00, by 5:36, you'll start hearing them go off." So that's my rule of thumb. I used to do it when it got dark, and I've learned over the years people do not wait until it's dark to set off fireworks, which is such an interesting concept for me because you can't see them, but... So thinking post-human dinner time is when the height of that action's going to happen.

Sarah: Yeah. That's a really great point. And it is something that has been a recent discovery for me because I was very much of the mindset of, "Well, I have to take them out. They're going to hate it, but they have to go to the bathroom. They have to go to the bathroom. They're never going to make it." And then it was really our two most recent dogs, the golden and the poodle, who are very dependable when it comes to accidents. They don't have accidents. And I was taking them out and they never did anything. They could not go to the bathroom with that stuff going on anyway. So all I did was take their stress to the absolute max, and I didn't even get even a pee out of them. So it was just not... There was really no point.

And so I finally made the mental note, I think last two 4th of July's and then last 4th of July, I actually went through with it, of just once I put them up, they're up and I'm not taking them out again. I'm not going to try to take them out. I'm not going to try to get that before bed potty or anything. And they went all the way until morning, both of them. And they were so much happier. And so skipping potty is definitely an option. And I think leaving them essentially alone, because the other thing that I think over the years I would have the feeling of, "Oh, I don't want to keep them locked up in their crates this entire time," et cetera, et cetera, that guilt setting in, but my dogs at least are happier in their crates than they are free. If you let them be free, they will go and try to find a crate to be in. They try to squeeze themselves under the coffee table-

Esteban: During a thunderstorm. Yes.

Sarah: Yeah. And so it was like-

Esteban: They want to hide away.

Sarah: They want to hide. And so I finally learned that like, "Don't feel bad. It is what is best for them to just let them go into their crates." They tend to curl up in a tiny little bowl in the back. That's where they feel best. And I just leave them alone and I don't make them get up and go to the bathroom, and I don't make them go out into the outdoors when the fireworks are going off.

Esteban: Yeah. So I think a major theme here that everyone can see now is that different dogs are going to require different things, right?

Sarah: Right.

Esteban: So dogs will... Some of them tolerate it perfectly fine. Others are like Jenn, they tolerate it pretty well, but they certainly benefit from some intervention, a little bit of assistance. And then even in our household, we have dogs that do okay, but these two puppies, yeah, they're absolutely the worst. I think the poodle is the absolute worst of the worst, and she can even be a screamer during thunderstorms. She will scream like someone is hitting her or something or there's a monster after her.

And she's very much our daughter's dog. So our daughter now just turned 14. And so our daughter will come and get her and take her to her room. And she says that when that happens, the poodle just basically runs to her and gets between her legs if Hannah is sitting down and just curls up there in her lap through the worst of it. And then as the poodle becomes comfortable, she will relax a little bit at some point, even during a storm, she will go and then sit on one of several dog beds that they have there. It's really a poodle palace there in Hannah's room.

Sarah: That's right.

Esteban: A lot of different places that she can go, but she says she will go and she will curl up and then just stay there. And so I think everybody's different. I think there was a time when I was like, "I wish I could hold all of my dogs." I was like, "You come over here." I think I even tried that with some of the older dogs, maybe the first generation dogs thinking, "Oh, they want physical contact from me. I need to hold them like I would a baby, a human infant." And I don't think that they necessarily need that. I think they can come looking for some reassurance, but then you can see them relax and they tend to sleep through it. And then as the noises pop, you can see their ears move or they respond to it physically, but they don't necessarily get up. They're going to be okay.

So some dogs, I think, are like that. Others, they definitely want to be in a crate. And if you try and bring them out, they will just keep going back to their crate. So I respect that. I let them do whatever it is that they're going to do.

Sarah: Yeah. I think what I've discovered is that as bad as we say our dogs are, they're actually not so bad in the house. It is when you try and take them out and something happens. So one thing I will say has never worked for me is trying to find a break in the fireworks. So there's always that moment where it feels like it is dying down and you're like, "I'm going to take them out real quick before it starts up again," and then right when you're outside, something goes off and then they are not okay in the house having just had that experience outdoors.

And so that's where this idea of, "We're just going to avoid the outdoors during the fireworks," for me comes from. And it's been really interesting for me too. I don't even know if I've told you this, Esteban, but the day after 4th of July, if I had taken them outside and tried to get them to go potty, the day after 4th of July, they're fine going outside during the day. When I open the door and it's dark outside, they will not go outside. I've had to pick the dogs up and carry them outside on July 5th because the experience of July 4th was so bad that when they see it's dark outside, they're like, "No. Dark is when the bad stuff happens." So...

Esteban: That's amazing.

Sarah: I know, right?

Esteban: [inaudible 00:15:12] really think about it. Yeah.

Sarah: It takes multiple days after 4th of July for them to go outside happily.

Jenn: And I was just going to comment on that. If anybody hasn't put together the idea of looking at a calendar, I think this year unfortunately is going to be a worse year than normal, because July 4th is on a Thursday, which means it bleeds right into the weekend. So you're going to get the fireworks on a Thursday, and then guess what, Friday night, because people are off work Saturday and then Saturday night and then die down on Sunday. When we have July 4th on a Monday, people set them off on July 4th, but Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, everybody's back to work.

Esteban: Yeah. They to get back to work. Yeah.

Jenn: [inaudible 00:15:50] you're going to have the July 4th holiday that people are going to have off and then they probably have long weekends. So a lot of people are going to have four day weekends plus fireworks will go on sale the next day. So a lot of people will wait until July 5th to go buy them and then spend the weekend setting them off.

So all the tips and things that we are talking about on this podcast, be prepared this year is going to need to last for several days. So I think looking at your schedules for the day and when you can get them out. I will say that is one thing that I try to do is I mentioned it with the enrichment and the Toppls, but lots of time on walks and going out and going potty and stuff during the day and trying to wear them out during the day. On July 4th, I don't work, not because I'm doing anything special for the holiday, but typically because I'm attending to the dogs and people want the holidays off anyway. To get them outside and to give them plenty of stuff, I will do some training, stuff that then by the evening, they're settling in.

And as you were talking about the poodle going up to Hannah's room, that triggered me that the other thing I tend to do, and I think this started years ago, so this might be something for those of you that maybe have young dogs or puppies, is if I have a dog that's more nervous and more responsive and reactive, I do try to keep them away from the more influential ones, because I do find that so many of the traits and tendencies the dogs will acquire and not just acquire, I'm not making it sound like thunder-phobic dogs learn it from other dogs, but in that moment, it can make my other dogs more uneasy.

So High Five is the one who's the most sensitive. And all the other dogs, she's also one of... In terms of my pack, she's one of the older dogs and the dogs I feel like would look up to her and they mimic her behaviors. If she goes somewhere, they go that way. And if she goes here, they do that. If I call High Five in, I know I get High Five and I get all the other dogs.

So I tend to keep her away from the other dogs during storms and fireworks because I don't want them to be like, "Well, if she's nervous, I should be nervous. What are we nervous about? Should I get nervous about something?" So I do think you can be mindful of deciding is it more comforting for your dogs to have each other or is it potentially, "You know what? I have one dog that's fine, one dog that's worried, and a puppy."? Maybe let the puppy hang out with the dog that's not so worried. So potentially separating and dividing the dogs up and letting them find their safe space. And not to state the obvious, but also basements with loud radios are great tools. That typically is where our dogs go.

Sarah: Yeah. So we don't have basements in Texas. Nobody has basements in Texas. [inaudible 00:18:28].

Jenn: Really?

Esteban: Not this part of Texas.

Jenn: Why [inaudible 00:18:28] have?

Esteban: Because of the flooding. [inaudible 00:18:30] essentially built in a swamp.

Sarah: Yeah. We're at sea level.

Esteban: So to build a basement would be to risk flooding everything in the basement.

Jenn: See, everybody in the Midwest has basements because we have tornadoes.

Sarah: Right, right, right. That's a great idea thing.

Jenn: So that's like a thing, is we go into the basement and turn TV, movies, radio on. And I try to just let the dogs think like, "Oh, we're hanging out in the basement and having a movie and popcorn party," and distract them. Distract them.

Sarah: Right. Right. Right.

Esteban: Yeah. We do. We do that with the TV, turn it up a little bit for sure. Yeah.

Sarah: So Jenn, I have a question for you. So aside from how you structure the day and things like that, is there anything else that you do for your dogs, anything that you do special? Or is that basically it? It's managing their meals and you're managing their emotional and mental state?

Jenn: The only other thing that I do, and it's more like a preventative, not something that I necessarily know for a fact they need, is I do use over-the-counter anti-anxiety. So I don't go extreme to the vet, although I'm very aware that a lot of people do, and I think that's a great option. I don't feel like my dogs are severe enough, but I do use a combination of and/or Yucalm and Zylkene, which are just two over-the-counter, nothing crazy, anti-anxiety just to help take off the edge. So I would say that that, planning my day, wearing them out, being mindful about where they are and what the noise and what they're hearing and then some calming stuff to help them is my go-to plan.

Sarah: Right. Yeah. So we've used in the past ThunderCoats and we have them for all of the dogs. I'm not sure how much-

Esteban: [inaudible 00:20:10].

Sarah: Yeah. ThunderCoat is... It's made for thunder and it basically... It's like a wrap for their midsection. It's supposed to be giving them a hug, having-

Jenn: Like a weighted blanket?

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Jenn: [Inaudible 00:20:25] weighted blankets or anti-anxiety, calming things. I have one. I love it.

Sarah: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I'm not sure that it helped them much. I feel like maybe... If you have one of those dogs that shakes when they're scared, I feel like maybe it helps with that. Maybe even it makes it feel weird for them to shake with it on. But I didn't find that it made a significant difference for our dogs.

Esteban: I agree. I agree.

Sarah: And then I think... You mentioned stuff from the vet. One of our dogs, as she got older, had a lot of behaviors, like anxiety type behaviors. And we had Trazodone for her. And again, I didn't feel like it was very helpful for things like thunderstorms and 4th of July. I just didn't see a lot of difference in her behavior. Now, one thing that we tried for the first time last July, and it was the best 4th of July we've ever had, so I'm on board, is something called ElleVet. And they're... It's like you said, over-the-counter anxiety stuff. This is like a hemp oil.

And I'm just going to say that we don't do a lot of supplementals. I think it a little bit stems from being married to a doctor. It's like there's got to be studies and all that kind of stuff, but this one was recommended to us by our vet, and she said that there were studies behind it and it was the one CBD type thing that she would recommend. And so we tried it, and then it was the best 4th of July we'd ever had. So now I'm like, "Yeah." We do it for thunderstorms. We do it for 4th of July. And they were still not happy and they still would not go to the bathroom outside, but inside of the house, they were the best they'd ever been with everything else going on. So that might be something for people to try if they haven't yet. So that's like our personal experience. And those are basically... I think we've hit on everything that we've tried and the good and the bad with it.

Esteban: Well, you mentioned getting stuff from the vet. And Jenn pointed out, while we were prepping for this podcast, the timing... Well, actually she mentioned during the podcast too, the timing of the holiday this year. So if you do have a dog that's really, really bad and it has never occurred to you to go and get something from the vet in the way of sedative or anti-anxiety or something like that, now's the time. We're taping June 25th here. I'm not sure when this will be posted.

Sarah: Tomorrow morning. Yep.

Esteban: Okay. Tomorrow the 26th. July 4th is coming. Get in to see your vet immediately and see what they can do for you.

Sarah: Absolutely. All right. Jennifer, anything else?

Jenn: I think we covered most of the tips that I have. I know it's a rough experience for a lot of dog owners. And the thing that I will say as a person trying to be very balanced in having my obsession with dogs but also trying to look at things from the outside is you see a lot of people on social media talking about, "I don't understand why people love fireworks. Fireworks are so dumb," you have to remember that people that don't have dogs and people that don't have animals find fireworks very cool. My son absolutely loves them. So you do got to remember that you don't have to hate the world because it's hard for dog. It is hard. I get that. But try to remember that there's a ton of people out there that find them really fascinating and cool, and you just got to be proactive and do the absolute best you can for those few days out of 365 days in a year.

Sarah: Great, great point. And that's it for this week's podcast. We'd like to thank our sponsors, Saint Rocco's Treats, and hititboard.com. Check out the Teeter "Teach It!" only at hititboard.com. The Teeter "Teach It!" is an easy to use tool that controls the amount of tip on your Teeter so you can introduce motion to your dog in a gradual way. Go to hititboard.com for the new Teeter "Teach It!" and other training tools and toys. Use discount code BDA10 to get 10% off your order. That's hititboard.com. Happy training.

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Speaker 10: What do ducks love about the 4th of July? Fire-quackers.