Hey folks! Tomorrow is one of those days when planning and preparation can save our furry friends a ton of anxiety and distress, so let’s talk about some solutions we can have in place to keep them from stressing over the explosions in the sky.
Here is an article from Patricia McConnell (author of Control Unleashed and other force free training books) that goes over some things we can do or not do to keep our buddies below threshold. While the article is certainly about dogs, many of the guidelines (including about counter conditioning) can be applied to our feline furballs too.
What are your go-to’s for making the 4th as comfortable as possible for your animals? Is your companion highly sensitive to noise? Share your tips and tricks for other folks to adopt if they haven’t already made a plan.
I set myself a calendar reminder for the middle of June so I can remind folks who need to order any scripts for their furballs in advance. Sorry for the oversight this year.
We’ve been counter conditioning for fireworks since our first July in our home - our cats had not grown up being very close to fireworks, but when we moved into a more rural area every neighbor and their cousin set off fireworks for a week. The basic premise of counter conditioning is simple: pair something good with something scary. Think lollipops at the doctor for getting a shot. We’d play clips of fireworks from yt on very low volumes and hand out treats whenever one of them paid attention to the bang, raising the volume every so often to move closer to recreating the actual sound they’d hear. When we got our pup, we started off doing the same with him and now it’s just another day, albeit a somewhat noisy one.
Some other things that help us manage their stress: closing windows and doors, playing music or movies at slightly above normal volume levels, and occasionally playing small quick games during the noisiest parts to distract their brains.