What is the best approach to dealing with New Year fireworks for the first time with an 11 week puppy. Ignore them and put her in the crate as normal about 10.30 in a quiet dark room or keep her awake and have the lights and radio on and our company?
Re: New Year's eve fireworks The first time my pup heard fireworks, I associated the bangs from fireworks with getting roast chicken. Bang! Hurrah! Chicken! Worked like a dream.... I had also played a DVD of fireworks beforehand for a few weeks and knew exactly when the fireworks would start right outside my house. My dog is now happy to watch a firework display outside. He might have been anyway, of course, but I like to think the chicken helped.
Re: New Year's eve fireworks Is your dog scared of loud noises? If so, keep her inside, close all windows, turn the TV/radio on. I wouldn't lock her in the crate, rather keep the crate's door open, let the dog choose where it feels more comfortable. Mine hides in the bathroom. I let him be.
Re: New Year's eve fireworks We took a very similar approach to JulieT, watched carefully how both dogs were reacting and rewarded with high value treats for calm. We ignored the fireworks, and acted like there was nothing out of the ordinary happening, this was so they didn't pick up on any change in behaviour/routine from us. I guess it does help in the fact that we have particularly calm natured labs (read bombproof...)
Re: New Year's eve fireworks Thanks for the suggestions. She doesn't seem to mind loud noises so I don't want to create anxiety by our behaviour. So I think we will just watch her calmly. At least with New Year you know when it is coming rather than bonfire night which now seems to last a week!
Re: New Year's eve fireworks I'm interested to see how mine react. Fireworks aren't a big thing here, but there will be some tonight. There were a couple on November 5th, but they lasted around thirty seconds and the pups didn't flinch. There will be a few more tonight and I'll keep an eye on Willow and Shadow, but I'm hoping that they won't be bothered. They grew up with a very close and daily hunt, so they're used to hearing gunshot, plus it was a particularly stormy end of summer, so they're used to thunder, too. Everything crossed for an easy evening.
Re: New Year's eve fireworks [quote author=buck link=topic=9293.msg133687#msg133687 date=1420117938] She slept through the whole thing!!! [/quote] So did Bouncer. Gun Dogs ;p
Re: New Year's eve fireworks I just left a penny to it the first time we had fireworks. We got her in the spring so it was a while until she heard any. Luckily she dealt with them ok - I just watched her, turned the TV up a little louder and ignored her. If I know there's going to be fireworks and I'm going out I will leave her as normal but put a radio on classical music for some background noise. This year I couldn't find the radio so unfortunately had to leave her as normal in silence. When we came home nothing was disturbed and she didn't seem unusually affected so I think she was ok. Her parents are working gundogs on a farm and she was bred in their stables so I guess this probably exposed her to gunshot at a very young age... Or we were just lucky.
Re: New Year's eve fireworks We got Holly about two weeks before New Year 2012. I used an old BBC sound effects record to condition her to the noise. We started with low volume and, over several evenings, increased the volume a bit. Come New Year she was completely indifferent to the noise. We can walk her any evening during the firework seasons. She just ignores bangs, pops, crackles and whizzes. The only ones she doesn't like are the ones that go "weeeeeeee"
Re: New Year's eve fireworks We had to close the blinds in our living room as Harley only reacts if she can see them! After that she was fine
Re: New Year's eve fireworks I've been poorly so we went to sleep at 11.30pm however, at midnight loud fireworks woke me up , however Bella didn't even stir, I didn't go up to her as I didn't want to create a problem, just listened, think I was more jumpy by the bangs than she was!! They kept me wake until 1.30am, but Bella slept through :
