Do fireworks freak out your pets? Sacramento experts have advice to ease their anxiety

Fourth of July fireworks around the region don’t delight everyone — they can set off our furry friends into panic mode.

Dogs and cats often have anxiety stemming from the booming and popping of fireworks throughout local neighborhoods — but we can try to make our pets feel better.

Some options are simple. Stay at home with your pets. Or turn up the volume with calming music or the TV to try to drown out the fireworks. Giving dogs treats or toys designed for extended play, like Kongs that can be filled with peanut butter, can also help quell anxiety.

“Our best advice: To take the offense knowing that most animals are frightened by these big sounds — not just dogs but also cats and other small animals,” said Dawn Foster, director of marketing and communications for the Sacramento SPCA .

“We suggest that you create a space in your home to bring all your pets inside during those peak firework hours and offer them their favorite today, add some ambient noise in there,” she said.

Foster noted Sacramento’s SPCA shelters can see an influx of 50 to 150 more dogs than usual during the week of Fourth of July because of fireworks. The most common instances are when dogs who are left outside escape their yards, alarmed by the noises.

She stressed the importance of making sure fencing is structurally sound, tall enough for large breeds that might be able to jump over fences and taking care of holes dogs could squeeze through.

“Also (important) is making sure they’re up to date on all their identification,” Foster said. “They have properly fitting collars with ID tags, have a microchip and that microchip is up to date, the information that’s tied to that.”

Foster said the first thing shelters do beyond checking collar tags is to scan for microchips to help reunite pets with their owners as quickly as possible.

Fireworks meet extreme heat

The current triple-digit temperatures smothering Northern California are also hazardous to dogs’ health, especially if they escape their homes and wander in unfamiliar surroundings. Dogs can easily suffer third-degree burns to their paws on asphalt, become dehydrated and suffer heat exhaustion.

“So not only are they at risk of getting hit by a car if they’re running outside your yard, now we have to worry about the heat as well,” Foster said. “So those are the biggest concerns right now. It’s a double whammy for pets that would be out and about.”

Even taking dogs for walks can burn their paws. Foster said concrete or asphalt can be checked by humans. If the concrete or asphalt is too hot for the human hand after seven seconds, it will be too hot for dogs’ paws.

Medications, ‘Thunder Shirts’

Bikram Basra, a veterinarian at the East Sacramento Veterinary Center, said calming medications for dogs can help if other avenues don’t relieve stress.

“There are medications like Trazodone, Gabapentin, which gets very popular this time of the year,” Basra said. “You can give them the medications to calm them down.”

Basra said pets should be acclimated to medications rather than just starting them on the Fourth.

An affordable accessory is available online called a Thunder Shirt , which is a compression shirt for dogs designed to give them gentle pressure, replicating a hug, which can calm environment triggers.

Basra said many pet owners he works with take their dogs out of town to a quieter place during Fourth of July.

Additionally, some dogs will be hesitant to go on routine walks this time of year when fireworks are set off regularly. Basra suggested trying to get walks in early in the day because fireworks are set off at night.

Foster mentioned using positive reinforcement to make walks as enjoyable as possible.

“If you can offer your pet a really positive experience around something that they might be fearful around, it does encourage them to potentially try it,” Foster said.

“For instance, maybe if your dog didn’t want to go on a walk around the neighborhood just because there are a lot of sounds out there, you might be able to coax your dog out to spend some time in a kid pool, playing around or playing fetch. If you add a real high value treat in there, like bacon or peanut butter or something like that where you’re getting them distracted from the fear and you’re rewarding them for actually partaking in an activity.”