Reduce your dogs anxiety of thunder and fireworks.
As we all know Auckland has had some shocking weather recently, this included over 329 lightning strikes in one night! Well, where there is lightning there is thunder…
That night I was out looking for my neighbours dog, he had run away from their house during the thunder. Thus leaving my dog, Indie, at home, luckily she isn’t too phased but thats not by coincidence, its from counterconditioning.
What is counterconditioning? It is the process of changing a perceived negative stimuli (in this case thunder) to a positive stimuli through positive reinforcement during the sound of thunder. In other words, you use treats or play (something your dog loves) to reward them while they listen to thunder or fireworks, this can work for any sound that makes them anxious. It is important you introduce counterconditioning slowly so you don’t overwhelm your dog.
According to surveys, up to half the pet dog population react fearfully to fireworks (Blackwell et al., 2013, Riemer, 2019, Storengen and Lingaas, 2015, Tiira et al., 2016), and one study indicated that over 15% of fearful dogs require several days or longer to recover behaviourally from a firework event, with over 3% exhibiting behavioural changes for weeks or months (Riemer, 2019). There has been research done on dogs with anxiety to fireworks through these surveys. It shows counterconditioning has been found as the most successful option and was associated with a significant improvement in the severity of firework fears and was considered as effective by over 70% of owners (Riemer, 2019).
So what does that mean for you? It means you are 70% more likely to see improvement in your dogs anxiety towards noises like fireworks or thunder if you countercondition them.
We offer counterconditioning services for you!
The most common noise triggers for dogs include outdoor noises like fireworks, thunder, outdoor construction, sirens, sporting events at stadiums, lawn mowers and even garbage trucks. Common inside noises can include doorbells, vacuum cleaners, indoor construction, electronic noises, celebrations and smoke detectors.
At Ballistics Dog Training we offer bespoke noise recordings to be made for you, we combine all the noises you notice your dog may be triggered by and put it into an audio file for you. We can start the initial counterconditioning and you can maintain it during meal or play times. Alternatively, we can teach you how to do it with the audio file. The audio file will then be yours to use whenever or wherever you choose.
If you would like to learn more about the studies done, please click here. If you would like to book a counterconditioning session with us please click below.
