June 28, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode, the hosts discuss how to manage dogs that are scared of fireworks, especially with the 4th of July approaching.
They cover various strategies including medication, training techniques, and desensitization methods. The hosts emphasize the need for responsible pet ownership and proactive training to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for both dogs and their owners during the holiday. Takeaways
- Medication like Benadryl can help manage fireworks anxiety in dogs.
- It's important to train your dog in basic commands before the fireworks start.
- Desensitization to loud noises can reduce fear of fireworks.
- Staying home with your dog during fireworks is crucial for their comfort.
- Exercise your dog leading up to the 4th of July to help them relax.
- Using music to mask the sound of fireworks can be beneficial.
- Fireworks anxiety can be managed with proper training and preparation.
- Don't let your dog hide during fireworks; it can worsen their anxiety.
- Consider boarding your dog if you have a party during fireworks.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
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(00:31):
the. So much.
What did you guys just do? No.
I'm falling over here. Welcome to balanced training.
Wait, you guys have shirts? Yeah.
Yeah. What the hell is happening right
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wear them. What happened?
I didn't even know we had. Wait, when did we get shirts?
(00:54):
See, they're they're super legit.
People are going to think this is a bit.
This is absolutely not a bit. I just saw you had shirts.
Is that why you guys were in thebottom of your screens?
Yeah. Dude I could not figure out what
was happening and then all of a sudden I saw this is crazy.
I like your shirts. Vloss has the hat too.
(01:14):
I'm super jealous about that. Oh wow.
So I don't know that you can sayyou like them because you don't
get one because you said you didn't like them when we voted.
Against it so. I don't know.
There's just so much is happening so quickly.
First, you guys are like ducked down and I'm the idiot.
Like, is this different? I feel like I have to look at
(01:36):
the bottom of my screen to see you guys.
I had no idea what was happening.
All right, well, I like the shirts.
Well, thanks Balanced Dog Training podcast shirts now
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shirt. And is it a cotton Poly blend?
What are we dealing with here? I believe it's just cotton.
(01:58):
I don't really know. I'd have to check the tag.
I'm not as up on that it. Feels pretty light to be full
cotton. I don't know.
It'll say on the store, hopefully it's 6040 cotton Poly.
All right, well, today, do you guys have any more surprises
that I need to know about? No.
OK, so today we're doing 4th of July episode Dogs that are
(02:23):
scared of fireworks. How to prevent that or remedy
that right? Right.
And it's a little late for trulypreventing.
So I think we're talking about how to manage at this point
because it is right now. It's like a week until July 4th,
right? Almost exactly a week, yeah.
But better to start now than to not do anything at all.
For sure. And, and I think most people are
(02:45):
probably going to be in the boatof hopefully managing as opposed
to actually being able to prevent it, right, because that
would have started earlier this year, much earlier this year.
OK, so someone has a dog who is scared of fireworks.
What do they do? So they've got a week, Nelson.
What? What do they do?
(03:06):
What I would do is I would look up, we probably should have
looked this up too, how much Benadryl the conversion is from
the human Benadryl to like what you can give your dog because
that seems to be a very, very common remedy for most people
(03:27):
this time of the year is I'm going to drug my dog up and
hopefully he sleeps his way through the day.
So your first advice is look up how much Benadryl your dog can.
Have how much How much drugs canI give my dog?
That's number one. So for everyone here in that,
that was on my list as well. I don't think it's number one,
(03:48):
but it'd be on there somewhere. Couple things.
One is it's easy to look at it and say, well, why would I give
my dog Benadryl? And sometimes you'd call a vet
and they might say, don't give your dog Benadryl.
The vast majority of vets say the opposite in a short term.
Like, you know, people do it if your dog has an allergic
reaction. People do it for the 4th of
(04:09):
July. People do it if something
happens and they don't have timeto, you know, to create a plan.
So Benadryl is very commonly used.
Obviously, we're not giving veterinary advice.
So talk to your vet or ChatGPT, whoever it is you trust the
most, and ask him what's good for your dog.
Right, because there's a conversion rate to how much to
(04:31):
actually give your dog based on weight.
So you'll definitely have to look that up.
But I guess it's not only Benadryl, right?
I mean, CBD is becoming increasingly more common for
trying to calm dogs down in scary situations.
I hear that all the time. So all of your advice is just
(04:52):
Benadryl CBD? Well, this is still the first
piece of advice. Chromacom.
Do we need any of that? Like what?
Some Trazodone. Trazodone for sure.
That seems to be tried and true.OK, so consider some short term
medications as advice number onefrom you.
Yes. And your big reason for that is
(05:14):
because you're not going to haveenough time to make a change in
the dog between now and then. So you need a way to get them
calmer. That's correct.
That's what you're going with. And not only that, but also
because you don't want to give the stuff to your dog on the 4th
of July for the first time. It is one of the things that I
always tell everybody is if you've never given your dog
(05:36):
Benadryl or you've never given your dog, you know, CBD or you
know, anything like that, because everything else is, you
know, required by the vet. So I'm assuming, you know, like
there was a whole process there.But if it's any of these more
common things, you should know what is actually, you know, how
your dog is going to handle thatstuff.
So maybe you do give it to him today, right?
(05:58):
And just kind of see, hey, maybehalf the dose or the full dose.
What is how does my dog react ifthey just go to sleep or they
more anxious, less anxious, you know, what does all of that look
like? Because you don't want to have
to find that on the 4th of July and it gets very, very difficult
and very, very expensive. So.
Hi everyone. This is Jason Perkinson, and I'm
(06:18):
the President of the International Association of
Canine Professionals. Our organization is focused on
three pillars, education, certification and legislation.
What that means is we help educate our members to ensure
that they're the best dog trainers they can be.
We also offer certification so that clients know that the
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(06:39):
focused on ensuring that trainers have the freedom to
choose the tools and techniques that work best for the dogs and
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Join the ICP today for yourself and to protect the industry.
Our friends on the Balance Dog Training podcast support the ICP
and we hope you will as well. Should I?
Can I give a piece of advice that it's sort of goes along
(07:02):
with Nelson's, but it's a littlebit different?
Yes, permission granted. Nice.
So I think that people, if they know that their dog's going to
have an issue, should plan on staying home for the 4th of July
regardless of if they're going to drug their dog or not.
If they're going to drug the dog, definitely be home,
(07:24):
especially if, like Nelson said,you haven't done it much in the
past. You're going to want to be
around that dog and make sure that they're doing OK whether
they're drugged or not, but especially if you're drugging
them for one of the first times.Well I'm glad you said that but
I feel like anyone who would drug their dog and know their
dog is scared of fireworks and then leave them it's just a dumb
(07:47):
ass. I can't imagine.
Then they'd come home like I can't believe my dog would.
Exist. And I don't think that's the
case. I feel like people try and make
themselves feel like it's going to be OK, right?
Like I took the the precautionary mess measures that
I have to by giving them the drugs and then that way I can go
out and go to a 4th of July party for the 4th of July
(08:08):
celebration and enjoy myself. So I.
Agree that they're trying to convince themselves, but I'd
still say they're a dumbass if they're able to convince
themselves of that. It's like if you're huffing
paint and you're like, I'm just going to do this once and like
it's not that bad. I'm not going to not going to
die. I'm doing this so I can tell
everybody else that it's a bad idea and don't, don't do it.
(08:29):
Take it from me, I've done it. Kids say no to drugs.
I've tried them a lot. Nelson Medrano, you need a shirt
that says that. All right, I I'm glad you said
that, Voss. I'm in agreement that people
should not do that. Definitely.
All right. So do we have any advice?
(08:50):
Like is there anything training wise people can do or do we just
kind of drug them and stay home?You don't think staying home was
training advice? I think that's pretty good
training advice. I would be running my dog out,
at least for the like. Let's see, the 4th of July is on
Friday, right? So.
(09:10):
I. Would I would start running them
out like crazy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning and
making sure that those dogs are exhausted and just want to sleep
through the day naturally anyways?
And then if you have to drug them then they'll probably take
to it even better anyways because they're already pre
(09:31):
exhausted. Agreed on the exercise for sure.
I feel like we should back up a bit though, maybe circle back to
the exercise. I mean I agree with you.
Getting the dog in recovery modeso they're just resting and
recuperating from vigorous exercise is going to make a
world of difference. But I would say if you've got a
week, there's a lot of other stuff we can do during that
(09:52):
week. And I would assume day of you
guys would both recommend obedience training as a calming
technique, right? For sure.
So I would suggest to anyone during the next week, there's
some things you need to make sure that your dog knows.
And these can all be trained in a week.
Even if the dog is fresh and doesn't know anything.
I would do the heel command without a doubt, which we'll
(10:13):
talk about later. If your dog doesn't understand
heel, it's not going to be very useful.
Left turns, right turns, Make sure your dog really, really
gets it. They can in the house, turn on a
use leash and they understand what you want from them.
And then I would teach them their obedience commands.
I would prefer you teach them sit down, stay and come before
the 4th of July. They all do different things and
(10:34):
they all can be used a little bit differently and we can talk
about when you might use different ones.
But I think getting the dog to understand all those commands in
the next week is well worth the effort, even if you're working a
couple hours a day and putting aton of effort into it between
now and then. Nelson you that's like can you
(10:54):
just time travel back a year andthen just like teach them
everything they're going to needto know and how a lot of common
you know that way you'll be ready for this year that will.
Get the time. Machine that would help a lot,
but I think you can do it in a week.
Teach those commands. We do it all the time with dogs
and we do it all the time with clients.
(11:14):
Like in a one year program, you know, the first week and we get
so much done. So there's the ability to do all
of this. Don't try it on the fourth.
You know, you want your dog to learn these commands now, But so
I would spend a week training and I think we should talk in a
few minutes like if we, you know, kind of talk about what to
do day of how to use all those commands.
But suffice it to say for now, teach all of them.
(11:37):
So Nelson, you started saying tostart the the tiring out process
before the 4th. Can you walk us through your
reasoning there? Yeah, one, one of the big things
that I've seen a ton is, I guessone thing that always comes to
mind is when dogs go to not, nota dog park, but like a daycare
(11:59):
or something like that, when they've actually stayed at a
kennel for a couple of days and then it takes a day or two to
recover. But that's because it's been an
extended amount of time of thosedogs being active, you know?
So even if you got your dog tired the morning of the 4th,
right, there's a good chance that the adrenaline is going to
(12:21):
be enough to get them right backinto action and they're not
going to be as tired as we thought they were, even though
we played a really long game of fetch.
What I would see being way more effective is running them out on
that Wednesday and then running them out on Thursday, playing
(12:42):
fetch, you know, both of those days as well, so that they are
continuously getting exhausted, never really fully being able to
recover. And then the morning of the 4th
as well, so that they literally require the rest of the day to
recover just to be able to kind of get all of their energy back.
(13:04):
Got it, love it and agreed. Another prep thing I would
suggest and I I suggest this to my clients a lot, I don't find
white noise generators to do very much for fireworks because
of the noise fireworks make the booming and you know the loud
shaking. I don't see that.
I'm not against the white noise generators, I just don't see
(13:24):
them being very helpful. So I don't think they're
certainly not bad. And for fireworks like high
pitched, like the ones that makelike sizzling noises in the air
and things like that, maybe theywork.
But the stuff that really seems to freak out the dogs are the
booms. And my experience, white noise
does nothing for that. What I do find to be helpful
though is to create sounds similar.
(13:45):
So I recommend to my clients to play music, especially in the
week leading up to it from a louder stereo like in the other
room with bass. So your dog gets used to some
booming noises. And some dogs, if they've got a
real firework issue, some dogs might be scared just from the
noise. Most aren't going to most are
(14:07):
going to like kind of ignore it.But what it does is it buys you
some time on the 4th where there's some noises that happen
and the dogs don't even pick up on because that music is
playing. It has to be pretty loud.
It you know, it can't just be like.
Softly in the background or exactly like that, yeah.
Yeah, it needs. And like, to me, it works best
when it's in the other room and it's a real stereo that's
(14:28):
putting out some actual bass. So I would suggest doing that
and make that a normal part of the dog's week.
And you could just turn it on every day at like 4:00 PM and
leave it on for a couple hours and get the dog used to that and
see if there's any issue whatsoever.
So you put the stereo in the other room and then the dog is
just kind of like free to roam in the house like normal.
(14:51):
Yeah. So I, I'm not, if a client has a
stereo with like a big setup in their living room, I'm not going
to say, well, we need to now putthat in the other room.
Yeah, sure. But overall, if you can like
let's say you are going to be hanging out in the bedroom, then
having it in the front room outside like so it's not right
in front of the dog, I find to be helpful.
(15:12):
And to me, it makes sense where you hear the noise coming from
all over the place, not just right next to them.
But I'm not super caught up on that, so if it's in the same
room, I don't think it's gonna ruin anything.
Are you stuck in the 90s covey? Does anyone still have a big
stereo set up? Yeah.
All they have is a sound bar under their TV.
(15:32):
That's all anyone ever has anymore.
That. Is good.
Have them big receivers, tower speakers.
No, I don't think anybody has that anymore.
I'm still impressed every time Isee someone's basement and they
have like the big screen TV and then the surround sound speakers
and all. Like the old big screen, Like
the wooden one. I I hope to never see one of
(15:54):
those ever again. I've had my my experiences.
I'm saying I'm more impressed bythe speaker setups than just the
big towers. The again the the stereo being
its own separate thing as opposed to just attached to ATV
on a Bluetooth speaker. So you were talking a lot about
sound here and I had a question on my list of things to talk
(16:18):
about. I don't know if it's a good
place to throw it out here or not, but.
Now what are? Your thoughts on fireworks as a
whole, the two of you, are you guys anti fireworks?
Are you pro fireworks? There's a big trend these days
of towns going away from fireworks and dogs are a big
reason why a lot of them are going to stuff like drone shows.
So what are your thoughts on that?
(16:42):
You want to take this? You want me to?
Nelson. I want you to because I'm going
to be probably more contrarian, so.
Well, I am exceedingly pro firework.
I'm not. Going to be contrarian then.
So I am very pro firework. I, you know, I buy boxes of the
cakes, you know, like, you know,that have all the mortars and
(17:03):
I'm like the one fuse you like that'll have like 20 or 30
things shoot out. Love doing those.
I think it's a lot of fun celebrating the 4th of July,
Independence Day. So I'm very pro fireworks and
I'm also pro dog. So the people that are always on
Facebook bitching and moaning about like my poor dog.
Well, your dog is only like thatbecause you haven't fixed it.
(17:24):
So the world shouldn't end because you haven't trained your
dog and found a way to help manage them.
And it's very doable. So I you know, and when I have a
client who has that issue, like I'm certainly not judge mental
about that issue going on. I'm like, let's fix it and let's
give this dog a way to cope and not have problems.
So very pro firework. The drone shows are cool.
(17:44):
I saw one at Dollywood. Amazing.
Man, see, that was the one thingthat we couldn't do at Dollywood
was the drone shows. Like I don't remember what
happened, but it was super, super cold and that I think they
were delayed by like half an hour or something like that,
which is it was already late andI didn't want to keep my kids up
that long so. It is super cool, I recommend
(18:07):
anyone watching it. It was actually cooler than most
fireworks shows. But I'll tell you what, I have a
little pushback when I've heard people say they're moving to the
drone shows because fireworks aren't good for the environment.
And our drones, like you have like literally 1000 drones
flying together with all these little lithium ion batteries.
That's not good for the environment like that.
(18:29):
Can you imagine that, those drones, the lifespan on them,
it's probably not very long. So I don't think it's a very
good substitute if you're sayingit's better for the environment
to fly 1000 drones in formation.One of the other reasons was
safety, but I think it was last year where there was that drone
show accident where a bunch of them crashed and then landed on
people in the audience. Which I mean, I know that an
(18:50):
explosion in the audience is badfrom a fireworks show, but it
seemed like there were some pretty, you know, some pretty
hefty injuries from that too. So I don't know if they're all
that safe either. The FAA is very very strict on
flying overhead of people for that reason is because a drone
coming out of the sky will take someone out pretty quickly.
(19:13):
So everybody's pro firework. I'm pro firework too, maybe less
than both of you. But the drone shows to me it
just aren't quite 4th of July ish enough.
Like you said, cool, but it doesn't have that, doesn't have
that same. Feeling.
Yeah, it's different, but they are pretty neat.
Yeah, you know, I, I don't feel bad for the dogs at all.
(19:33):
You know, again, I'm with you, Covey.
And the fact that all of their anxiety and fear could have been
managed and fixed and you could have had a A normally.
So fine dog. Can we rephrase that?
I bet you said you don't feel bad for the dogs at all.
I I don't feel bad for the clot the the owners at all.
(19:55):
I feel bad for the dogs cuz their owners haven't trained
them. All right, that's fair.
I'll give you that. That's I'm assuming that's what
you meant, right? Yes.
That is closer to what I meant for sure.
So I will definitely, you know, concede that one.
But again, fireworks have been around forever.
It is it's an American traditionto use fireworks.
(20:17):
I feel bad for the veterans. So if there was a if there was
an argument that I could start to see it and it hasn't really
changed my mind yet, but I'm certainly closer to the mark
with the fact that a lot of veterans come back with PTSD and
that that might, you know, sparkthat.
(20:38):
I think that's a real argument. But when it comes like the dogs
and stuff like that, I mean, we've been using dogs for
hunting forever, you know, and we hunt with guns and they're
just as loud, if not louder thanfireworks.
And those dogs are happy to hearit, right?
They're happy to hear those shot, those shotguns so that
(21:00):
they can run off and go do theirjob and stuff like that.
So, you know, the sound is to the dog, whatever it is that we
allow it to be. And so if they got scared, we'd
fix it, you know, that kind of stuff.
So I don't think dogs as a validargument for ending fireworks
makes a ton of sense when I feellike fireworks and that
(21:21):
community stuff that you really only see on the 4th of July
nowadays it's probably more important.
Well, and I think we might have buried the lead a little bit at
the beginning of the podcast. You know, the reason we're
talking about this is because more dogs go missing on the 4th
of July than any other holiday any other day.
So, you know, it is a big thing.It happens to a lot of people.
(21:42):
A lot of dogs have issues here so.
That's why we're talking about. This.
I'll tell you what I know on next door.
I see in my area every 4th of July so many dogs that escaped
through a gate and got loose andyou see and you're like, what is
wrong with you people? Like you're leaving a dog
outside in an unsecured gate on the 4th of July.
(22:05):
Like it just. I can't wrap my head around
that. And so maybe that's why I'm
always in shock of the fact thatpeople are still bringing that
up because I don't live in the South like you guys.
But it's hard to imagine that inIllinois at least, you know,
heavily populated parts of Illinois, that people still have
(22:25):
their dogs outside while the fireworks are going on.
You know, like, it just doesn't seem what I see and hear of,
especially from clients way moreoften is that their dogs are
terrified under a bed and just stressed out for, you know,
hours and hours on end, right? And lick themselves raw, or, you
know, chew on themselves, that kind of stuff as opposed to
(22:46):
getting loose. Don't forget the majority of
Illinois is rural too. That is right, you live in a
city. You're you're a city slicker,
but there's a city slicker in Illinois.
There's no doubt about that. So before we move on, I, if any
veterans want to weigh in, in the comments, love to hear from
you. I've asked a lot of veterans
this over the years and I've actually never heard some one of
(23:06):
them say they would like to get rid of fireworks.
And their reasoning has always been that it's freedom and
people should be able to live their life and within reason do
what they want. If any veteran feels different,
I mean, I I think it's a good conversation to have because if
enough veterans felt like they needed firework free zones, that
makes a lot of sense. But I've never heard one
(23:28):
actually. Say that, yeah, I would be super
interested to, you know, know what it is that that community
really thinks because again, that's the only argument that
even starts to make sense to me.OK, so we've talked about drone
(23:48):
shows, fireworks, drugs, all kinds of good stuff, Nelson.
This is the 4th of July. You had said start exercising
heavily a couple days before. I agree completely.
It's cumulative. It just is and it it makes a
huge a world of difference. I'm with you 100%.
(24:09):
Busy week leading up to the 4th,4th of July comes.
If you know when the fireworks are going to go off, that's
great. It helps you plan.
Generally it depends where you live, but most places it's not
all that wild during the day andit starts getting louder in the
evening. But whatever.
Hopefully you know your area. I would do a few things.
(24:29):
One like Nelson opened with I would get the dog into basically
recovery mode. What the way I explained that,
and I think we talked about thisin the separation anxiety
episode, would be that your dog is exercising.
You have to do this within reason.
Don't be an idiot, but get your dog really tired.
The goal is that they are layingon the floor panting and that's
(24:50):
all they want to do is cool off and you have to use judgment.
Obviously it's the 4th of July, it's going to be hot out.
Like if you don't know how to tell if your dog is too hot,
that's a problem. Obviously you don't want to
cause heat stroke or heat exhaustion.
Those are huge deals. So don't do that if you need to
do some research on what that looks like.
But your dog, in my opinion, should be laying on the floor
(25:12):
panting heavily. The things I watch for that
worry me is when a dog can't catch their breath.
So if you have your dog who's like panting and they're like
shutting their mouth open and open and shut and like licking
like that is probably too much. They should just be tongue out,
big heavy pant, wanting to lay on a cool floor somewhere to
relax that that's what I would be looking for.
(25:33):
And I would try to time that pretty close to before the
fireworks start because they're not going to be in recovery mode
for that long. And you know, a lot of that
depends on your dog though, of course.
So I'll tell you what I think right now is a great time that
we take a break and that we jumpinto 62nd questions where we
call a trainer. The question today is right
(25:53):
online with what you're talking about right now.
So I think right now is the perfect time to do that.
We need like a sound effect. So I could have like stopped you
from talking and like hit the sound effect.
So, you know, it's 62nd QuestionTime.
You know what's weird is now with me using my phone to do
this, I get sucked into like I was already checking e-mail.
(26:14):
Like I pick up my phone and my brain just tells me like check
e-mail and you guys are talking.I'm like, that's ridiculous.
I don't know, I might be addicted to this phone.
ESPN sound is like in my head right now.
I'm like. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh duh.
Like I need we need some type ofintro.
For sure. So I'm calling Sam.
Sam. Let's start with Sam, Yeah?
(26:34):
OK, Sam, Doug, let's see what happens here.
(26:54):
Hello, Matt Cubby. Sam, you are live on balanced
training with suburban canine. Oh God.
OK, here we go. How are you?
Good. Me and Zach are actually sitting
down for lunch between appointments.
Hi, Zach. Nice.
Should I put Zach on the spot too?
Sure, but you have to answer ourquestion.
(27:15):
OK, would it be helpful if I satin the car to have better sound?
No, this is perfect. OK.
I'm going to put you on speaker.So we are on live and the
suburban canine pad and we're getting tested right now by a
company founder, Matt Covey. So we're ready for your
questions. OK, so Vloss, I have to read the
question, don't I? Yep, but I got the timer.
(27:38):
This is a lot. I have to switch tabs.
We have a document right? Vloss?
OK, here's the question. You have 60 seconds to answer
this. A client says I am having guests
over for the 4th of July. I have a nine month old dog and
since getting him we haven't hada party or had him around
fireworks. What can I do between now and
(27:58):
the party to get the puppy ready?
What should I do with my puppy during the party?
God. OK, first I want to ask age of
or breed of dog? Cattle Dog of.
Course it is. And has he met anybody in like
small settings or has he met anyother family members?
(28:21):
Any other people social before this?
Or is it no people social since the party?
None. Great, and it's June 26th as it
is today. Yes, cool.
Has the dog been crated ever before?
By the way, she has 30 seconds left.
You only have 30 seconds left. Goodness, he has.
(28:41):
So we have. To work on heal command and some
basic obedience as fast as we can.
To get a little bit of an introduction process started so
we can start working on possibletreat tosses or interactions in
public. Have to talk about if we're
going to what kind of tools we're going to use depending
upon the dog and if it is reactive because it's a kennel
dog. And then we just get to meet as
much people as possible. Then we're going to start
(29:03):
building up positive associationor at least desensitization with
sounds. So we can use speakers and
thunderstorms and loud fireworkssounds and slowly turning up
volumes, but it needs to happen in lots of fast increments as
soon as possible. Probably at least two hours of
training a day do. I have any more time left?
No, you're you're over you. You are asking questions.
(29:23):
So. Cattle Dog does print off this
day, so if it was a doodle that would probably change my answer
a little bit. So we have to change the rules
of this game and for now on, tell people no questions
allowed. You get what you got and you
just imagine. So that was a lot.
That was some, that was some good advice.
We're doing a 4th of July episode as we speak about
(29:44):
fireworks, and so we're going topost this before the 4th.
Love it, so exciting. I usually have if clients have
multiple speakers or like Alexa Siri systems that I'll have them
around the house and I have a certain playlist.
I have them on Spotify or what'sthe other one?
Pandora, whatever other mute Apple that I show them like the
(30:05):
playlist and then I just have them play on low settings for
thunderstorms and fireworks around the house.
OK, love that. Can you send us a link to that
playlist? Is that a thing you can link to
that we can put in the description of this this
podcast? Yeah, fair warning.
It has a bunch of other weird stuff on there like car noises,
baby noises, dog noises, and if you leave it playing while you
(30:28):
go into a client's home and thenyour car connects to your phone
automatically, you will have those noises playing in your car
as soon as. You get in.
That's awesome. That sounds delightful.
Baby noises barking. Yeah, Cool.
There's like a. Washer machine?
Yeah, I'll send that to you guys.
Do you want e-mail or text? Whatever, I'm just going to pop
it in. It's going to be amazing.
And we're going to credit because we're going to say
(30:50):
courtesy of Sam. Sam, perfect.
Can't wait. All right, Yeah, you won.
You actually got first place. All right.
Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Sam.
Talk. To you later.
Bye. So let me ask you 2 based off of
(31:10):
her answer. What about doing something
completely different? What about telling the person
that they should try and board their dog for that instead?
I mean you got a party with a ton of people.
They're going to have to be paying attention to the people
and their guests. The odds of them being able to
pay attention to their dog are slim.
You also have the added issue offireworks and not knowing if the
(31:33):
dogs good or bad with fireworks right?
What do you think about boardingthere?
I think in that situation it makes a ton of sense.
You know, if you, if you waited too long, I, if you have a week
like we have now, I think no matter what, even if your plan
is to board, you should still get the heel done, the, the
recall done. And especially downstate would
(31:54):
probably be the one I'd be harping on a lot that we haven't
really talked about too much. But downstate would be one that
I'd be focusing on. And I think a lot of vets will
do kind of boarding situations and stuff like that.
And I always feel pretty good about that because again, if
(32:15):
they had to administer any kind of drugs, they, you know, the
vet is right there. So that's always a good thing.
I would encourage you if you leave a dog with a vet to check
out their boarding facility because some have real boarding
and others just have like heavy duty metal cages that they use
after dog surgery and the dog stays in there overnight which
(32:37):
would really suck for the dog. For sure.
I would look for a vet that actually does boarding, not just
you know they'll board your dog when it's injured.
However, that does bring up one of the things that I was going
to say too is if your dog is crate trained or you are
(32:57):
planning to use a crate, fortifying that crate is kind of
a must to me, right? So if I just have a regular wire
crate, I'm going to be using a bunch of zip ties all of all
around the edges to make sure that it, you know, it's
indestructible to the best of myabilities there.
(33:18):
But if you have a stress ball dog that's very, very nervous
about thunderstorms and fireworks, maybe it starts to
make more sense to invest in oneof the more heavy duty crates
like gunner kennels and impact crates and and those those
similar ones. Can I just throw something out
there with zip ties? I don't like the zip tie option
(33:42):
because when you put them on there, generally speaking, you
tighten it and then you clip theend, right?
And when you clip the end, it leaves like a jagged, sharp
little edge. And when that spins around, if
the dog's trying to get out, it can really cut their gums up
quite a bit. So I prefer, and we've talked
about this I think before, just like the clips that would be on
(34:03):
a leash. You can buy those at the Home
Depot and put those on the corners of the crate to hold
them together and they're prettycheap and generally speaking, I
think a safer option, so. That's a good tip, but I wonder
like does that because I haven'thad now, obviously I'm I do
something about it. So it's not like the dogs would
(34:24):
ever get as bad with me at my house as they would with an
owner, but I've never had a dog actually cut themselves.
I I definitely see what you're saying though.
There is that little sharp bit right at the end.
Super sharp, it's like a knife. Definitely, I mean, I've cut
myself on it for sure, right? I haven't had a dog cut
themselves, but I have. But I I wonder if just using the
(34:45):
clips changes the fact that theyhave more give right?
And that kind of keeps a dog trying harder.
I mean for sure depends on clip size.
So I use clips and I use the smaller brass ones.
And when you're connecting 2 bars of a wire cage, it ends up
being tight, really tight. So there's no spinning.
(35:06):
But if you use like a big heavy duty brass, you're right for
sure. It'll have you know, I don't
know, quarter inch in between the two bars and compose an
issue. Kind of.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Screwing around there, yeah.
All right, so day of, you've gotmusic playing, maybe you've got
your dog in recovery mode and fireworks happen and the dog
(35:32):
looks a little bit and what do you do?
Do you immediately run over and pet him and say it's OK, don't
be scared, What do you do? No, that's actually a really
good, really good .1. Don't cuddle your dog, it'll
only make it worse. And a lot of times you over
stimulate them even more so thanthey already are.
(35:54):
If they are racing around. Like if if they're pacing around
frantically around the house, stopping that is super
important. You know, I would probably stop
it with a, you know, a no and a tug if I think that that's going
to work. If not, again, This is why I
said to focus on those down stays.
He's getting them to lay down somewhere and focus on being
(36:15):
there is is going to be beneficial.
But I'll be honest with you. I mean, both of those options
are really predicated on the fact that they'll work.
And if they won't, it's all about the heal.
You know, you could, I don't recommend it, but you could
teach heal the day of the 4th ofJuly.
It's just not going to be good. But I'll still be 75% effective,
(36:40):
right? You're still pacing the dog
around, even if it's doing a really crappy job, but it's just
not getting as calm as it shouldbe as quickly as it should be.
So if you have nothing else, if you didn't get to teach all the
commands or anything like that, throw your dog on a leash and
start pacing around. Keep him with you.
Keep him not necessarily busy, but you know as you're prepping
(37:03):
for whatever your night is goingto look like, they might as well
be right next to you. So I have a couple thoughts
there. One is the training.
What you're everything you do isgoing to be dependent on what
your dog does. Your dog could do many things.
So if your dog just looks when they hear the noise, I would
(37:23):
just ignore it. And if they look a little
stressed, I would probably ignore that too and think about
when you have like I know you'vegot still, your kids are still
young, Nelson. Think like when a kid falls and
skin like skins, their knee. Sometimes you say nothing.
You just look from a distance and they look left, they look
right, they get up, they look attheir name, they go right back
to plane. But if you run over there and
they see you, all of a sudden, there's, at least in my
(37:46):
experience, way more likely to be tears and things start.
So I would just let it play out for a second.
I would just watch. Now if your dog gets up and
bolts to hide, well then you know, like you've got to step
in. If they're just kind of looking
left and right, there's a chanceI'm going to do absolutely
nothing. I would also suggest anyone have
something really high value thatthe dog likes and try to give
(38:10):
them some, you know, something fun to chew on.
And this comes down to how scared your dog is.
If your dog is scared of dying, they're not going to want to eat
something. So if your dog's at like just to
make up numbers a level 10 and they're terrified beyond belief
and you go like chasing after them with a marrow bone, it's
not going to do anything. It's not going to help.
But if your dog just a little bit nervous, if they heard like
(38:31):
a little boom and they're like, what was that?
And but they can't quite tell, that's the music or the
firework. And you go over and get a marrow
bone and hand it to them. There's a really good chance
that this bone's going to be awesome and they're going to
rather chew that and they're going to be distracted and
happy. So I would try that if possible.
And then the other thing I wouldtry would be playing with them.
If they have a game, they play. Some dogs don't have the game.
(38:55):
And if if they don't, it's probably a little bit too late
to teach them if you're doing day of.
But could be fetch, could be tugof war, could be, I mean hide
and go seek. Anything you do with your dog,
if you can find something to keep them busy, that's fun.
I would do that. And then, but very often those
aren't going to work and you're going to have to use obedience
because if your dog like what Nelson, you set up a minute ago,
(39:16):
if your dog is running and pacing, they're probably not
going to stop The Chew the bone and they're probably not going
to like come play tug of war. And you can't make them play if
they don't feel like it. And that's when obedience will
be crucial to, you know, to givethem something to do, you know,
to calm them down. Definitely.
(39:37):
So you got something looks. Like I was going to say, I mean,
I think you guys nailed addressing this stuff.
One thing that I feel like I've noticed though from the two of
you talking about it is it sounds like you're talking
mainly about dogs that are scared of fireworks.
And I think there can be a couple of different types of dog
issues towards fireworks. Now I'll give you a story So.
(40:02):
I think when I adopted Zilla back in the day, it was a week
before the 4th of July and we took him to 1/4 of July party
and we were naive dog owners at the time, right?
Really. Didn't you know, it wasn't a dog
trainer yet at this point. You know, when I got Zilla it
was before I ever had any real dog training experience or
anything like that. So we had him loose at the
(40:22):
party, he was hanging out havinga great time.
And as it got dark outside, someof the kids went to the back of
the yard to shoot off fireworks and they had Roman candles and
they were shooting them at each other.
Well, Zilla wasn't a wasn't afraid of the fireworks.
Zilla wanted to kill the fireworks, right?
So he ran after them, was tryingto get the Roman candle out of
their hands. And luckily they held him up
(40:43):
over their head, right. And he didn't get to it.
But I guess my my question with the story is, is your advice
different for dogs that aren't necessarily scared but sort of
want to go after the fireworks? Is it a different situation or
is all the? Definitely more corrections than
just jumping into management, right?
(41:05):
So I'm probably not going to be jumping into just trying to get
them a bone or something like that to distract them.
If the dog is not scared and actually having a problem with
the fireworks, there's there's away better chance that I'm
actually going to just move to correcting for the behavior and
then calming them down after that.
(41:26):
I agree with you there, Nelson. So I had said earlier that I
would, we'd talk through when you would use each command and
let's just I'd like to give a little information to people on
that. So we already talked about when
to use the heal command. If your dog is pacing and is
just going bonkers, you run in circles.
(41:48):
I would heal them until they're calm.
And I consider, and I think I'vesaid this in previous episodes,
I'm sure I have, you know, all commands in order.
He'll sit, sit, stay down, down,stay and then come.
And if you can't do the previousone in the order, generally
speaking, you're not going to doa later 1.
So if you can't heal your dog calmly in that environment,
stay. It's not very fair.
It's probably going to go poorlyand don't let them off lation
(42:11):
call them to you. Probably not going to go well if
you can't walk them without themfreaking out.
So go in order, take your time. So this is not a race.
So if the fireworks are going onfor let's say an hour or two
hours, I don't know if you calmly work your dog the whole
time and there's no big freak out, that's a success.
So just, and I think it's important for people to know, if
(42:34):
you're trying to fix this a weekahead of time, you're not going
to fix it. You're going to give yourself a
bunch of good management tools to make your dog's night better.
And then you can work on really fixing it over the next year to
where this issue isn't a problem, but you might spend the
entire evening working with yourdog.
And that's just, that's to me, part of having a dog.
You've, you have this issue withyour dog, it's on you to fix it.
(42:54):
So you've got to, you know, giveyour dog a good night.
So you might be really busy. Different commands going to
start with heal when that's going really well, when it feels
pointless, I might work some down stays and just practice,
you know, having the dog hold a down stay, knock on the door,
throw a ball past them, anythingjust to kind of be distracting.
And then I would do a lot of work on come as well because
(43:16):
come is exciting. It's fun.
You know, you call the dog to you tons of praise for them
listening. So I would do a lot of that as
well. But just the biggest thing is go
in order and you might spend, ifyour dog's really freaked out,
you might spend like 90% of yourtime on heel.
It could be a huge percentage oftime that that's OK, definitely.
(43:40):
So we. Didn't talk.
We we've set this whole thing up, but being a week.
Thanks for rejoining, Velos. Good to see you again.
Yeah, storming like crazy. Out there.
Welcome to Florida. Welcome to Florida.
So one thing. We haven't talked about is how
to fix it if you have more than a week.
What I would suggest is it's outside the scope of this
(44:00):
episode, but we have other we'vetalked about this other times
and other episodes I believe anddefinitely in some YouTube
videos. But I would create, I would
practice with fireworks and starter pistols over the course
of the year. And if you say, well, I live in
like downtown in a big city and I can't do that, I don't know, I
guess go suburb Illinois. Yeah, go outside of town.
(44:22):
To where you can do it, but even22 by.
Fours when you clap together 22 by fours, there's a lot of
concussion and a really loud noise.
So I mean, I guess maybe that's weird to some people too to have
to get that, but 2 short 2 by fours really make a loud noise
when you clap them together. Yep, they do I.
Bought a bunch of those little poppet.
(44:43):
Things as a as a starter. Those never fix the problem,
just so that you know everyone listening knows it.
It's still a minor sound compared to what a real firework
would be, but it's a good place to start, conquer that, and then
you're ready to kind of move on to some of the bigger stuff as
well, so. So overall, if your dog has
(45:05):
major issues with this and you just tackle it each 4th of July,
you're never really going to fixthe issue.
You're just going to get better and better at managing it.
They need to be exposed to it more and that, you know, they
need to be desensitized to it, you know, to where it's not this
super stressful thing. And we've talked, I think we
talked a little bit about this when we talked about counter
conditioning in an episode. But you know, the idea something
(45:28):
exciting happens, something goodhappens along with those
fireworks. And the desensitization is
teaching them how to feel calm, you know, around that.
So I'd be lighting off fireworksfrom a long distance and
training the dog on leash, trying to give them something
good, trying to pair it with firework happens.
We heal to you're nice and calm.Here's some food, anything you
can do to calm them down and andhave some good experiences.
(45:51):
And you might start with Black Cats like 100 yards away and
then you get slowly closer and then maybe you now you move up
to like getting some bigger fireworks, but or a starter
pistol. But to fix this, you're going to
have to work on it sounds like acommercial for.
Fireworks companies to help yourdog buy more fireworks.
(46:13):
And might be an unpopular opinion, but if you want to fix
it you're going to have to be lighting off some stuff that's
for. Sure, or be comfortable firing a
gun. Or a starter pistol.
Otherwise you're just going to be doing this every single year
forever. And then I feel bad for the dog
where nothing's done and the dog's just like wallowing in
fear every 4th and they lose thewhole day.
(46:35):
Right. I mean, at least around us, even
though fireworks are illegal, I mean day, Well, sure, the entire
month, four days at least. At least.
Yeah, I mean, they've, they started like a month ago around
me. But you know, again, that's so
inconsistent, I never know when it's going to happen.
If I had a dog that was really struggling here, I mean, I would
(46:57):
assume that a lost dog would happen days before the 4th as
opposed to on the 4th itself, just because those are the, you
know, usually you'll know when the show is and you'll have a
general idea of when all the noise is happening.
The days before you have no idea.
Yeah, you have to. And I kind of said this earlier,
you have to know your area for sure.
(47:18):
I live in Tennessee. So that means it's 10 days
before and 10 days after the 4thand then the same on New Year's,
right in this down here in Florida.
It's crazy how much fireworks are for New Year's and not the
4th of July. I feel like New Year's actually
might be the bigger fireworks holiday.
(47:38):
That's interesting. Which when you're.
In the Midwest, that's. Not something you have to deal
with as much. People aren't going to be out
there freezing their fingers off, shooting off fireworks.
The fireworks might freeze. In the air they might.
There's a chance it's not that cold.
That's. That's February and February
that would happen. All right, did we cover
(47:59):
everything? I think so.
So this is. Very doable.
I would encourage anyone listening to work hard with your
dog or if you're a trainer, you know, pass this on to your
clients who are struggling with this issue.
Very doable to make it a lot better.
And just remember, it's basically just management unless
you're going to set this up during the course of the year.
(48:20):
And some people just manage on ayearly basis.
But the stuff you do in the weekahead of time changes it from
easy management, I'm sorry, fromimpossible to manage to fairly
easy management. If you do everything we talked
about, it doesn't mean your dog's going to be perfect and
have a great night and love every second of it, but it's not
going to be a fiasco. And we didn't specifically say
(48:40):
this, but if you let your dog hide, that issue's going to get
worse every single year. So if your dog is allowed to go
hide in a closet and shake and you're like, well, I mean, he
seems happy there, it's better than barking or whatever.
Next year's going to be worse. And so is the year after, and
it's going to get to the point where Thunder sets them off and
then little things set them off.This problem is going to morph
(49:01):
and grow and get worse and worseand worse.
So do not let them do that. Also take your dogs.
Out on a leash when you let themgo to the bathroom.
If you have a stressful dog it'sit's worth the annoyance of
having to walk out there with them.
That's true. And if you just.
Rescued a pit boxer mix named Zilla.
Don't take it to your friend's house and let it off leash while
(49:24):
kids light off Roman candles. Definitely don't do that.
Live and learn. All right.
Well, thank you for listening, everybody.
Have a great day. Thanks everyone.
(49:45):
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What did you guys just do? No.
I'm falling over here. Welcome to balanced training.
Wait, you guys have shirts? Yeah.
Yeah. What the hell is happening right
now? I thought we all were going to
wear them. What happened?
I didn't even know we had. Wait, when did we get shirts?
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See, they're they're super legit.
People are going to think this is a bit.
This is absolutely not a bit. I just saw you had shirts.
Is that why you guys were in thebottom of your screens?
Yeah. Dude I could not figure out what
was happening and then all of a sudden I saw this is crazy.
I like your shirts. Vloss has the hat too.
(01:14):
I'm super jealous about that. Oh wow.
So I don't know that you can sayyou like them because you don't
get one because you said you didn't like them when we voted.
Against it so. I don't know.
There's just so much is happening so quickly.
First, you guys are like ducked down and I'm the idiot.
Like, is this different? I feel like I have to look at
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the bottom of my screen to see you guys.
I had no idea what was happening.
All right, well, I like the shirts.
Well, thanks Balanced Dog Training podcast shirts now
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website. Go check out awesome super cool
shirt. And is it a cotton Poly blend?
What are we dealing with here? I believe it's just cotton.
(01:58):
I don't really know. I'd have to check the tag.
I'm not as up on that it. Feels pretty light to be full
cotton. I don't know.
It'll say on the store, hopefully it's 6040 cotton Poly.
All right, well, today, do you guys have any more surprises
that I need to know about? No.
OK, so today we're doing 4th of July episode Dogs that are
(02:23):
scared of fireworks. How to prevent that or remedy
that right? Right.
And it's a little late for trulypreventing.
So I think we're talking about how to manage at this point
because it is right now. It's like a week until July 4th,
right? Almost exactly a week, yeah.
But better to start now than to not do anything at all.
For sure. And, and I think most people are
(02:45):
probably going to be in the boatof hopefully managing as opposed
to actually being able to prevent it, right, because that
would have started earlier this year, much earlier this year.
OK, so someone has a dog who is scared of fireworks.
What do they do? So they've got a week, Nelson.
What? What do they do?
(03:06):
What I would do is I would look up, we probably should have
looked this up too, how much Benadryl the conversion is from
the human Benadryl to like what you can give your dog because
that seems to be a very, very common remedy for most people
(03:27):
this time of the year is I'm going to drug my dog up and
hopefully he sleeps his way through the day.
So your first advice is look up how much Benadryl your dog can.
Have how much How much drugs canI give my dog?
That's number one. So for everyone here in that,
that was on my list as well. I don't think it's number one,
(03:48):
but it'd be on there somewhere. Couple things.
One is it's easy to look at it and say, well, why would I give
my dog Benadryl? And sometimes you'd call a vet
and they might say, don't give your dog Benadryl.
The vast majority of vets say the opposite in a short term.
Like, you know, people do it if your dog has an allergic
reaction. People do it for the 4th of
(04:09):
July. People do it if something
happens and they don't have timeto, you know, to create a plan.
So Benadryl is very commonly used.
Obviously, we're not giving veterinary advice.
So talk to your vet or ChatGPT, whoever it is you trust the
most, and ask him what's good for your dog.
Right, because there's a conversion rate to how much to
(04:31):
actually give your dog based on weight.
So you'll definitely have to look that up.
But I guess it's not only Benadryl, right?
I mean, CBD is becoming increasingly more common for
trying to calm dogs down in scary situations.
I hear that all the time. So all of your advice is just
(04:52):
Benadryl CBD? Well, this is still the first
piece of advice. Chromacom.
Do we need any of that? Like what?
Some Trazodone. Trazodone for sure.
That seems to be tried and true.OK, so consider some short term
medications as advice number onefrom you.
Yes. And your big reason for that is
(05:14):
because you're not going to haveenough time to make a change in
the dog between now and then. So you need a way to get them
calmer. That's correct.
That's what you're going with. And not only that, but also
because you don't want to give the stuff to your dog on the 4th
of July for the first time. It is one of the things that I
always tell everybody is if you've never given your dog
(05:36):
Benadryl or you've never given your dog, you know, CBD or you
know, anything like that, because everything else is, you
know, required by the vet. So I'm assuming, you know, like
there was a whole process there.But if it's any of these more
common things, you should know what is actually, you know, how
your dog is going to handle thatstuff.
So maybe you do give it to him today, right?
(05:58):
And just kind of see, hey, maybehalf the dose or the full dose.
What is how does my dog react ifthey just go to sleep or they
more anxious, less anxious, you know, what does all of that look
like? Because you don't want to have
to find that on the 4th of July and it gets very, very difficult
and very, very expensive. So.
Hi everyone. This is Jason Perkinson, and I'm
(06:18):
the President of the International Association of
Canine Professionals. Our organization is focused on
three pillars, education, certification and legislation.
What that means is we help educate our members to ensure
that they're the best dog trainers they can be.
We also offer certification so that clients know that the
trainers are true professional. Our legislative efforts are
(06:39):
focused on ensuring that trainers have the freedom to
choose the tools and techniques that work best for the dogs and
clients that they work. With.
Join the ICP today for yourself and to protect the industry.
Our friends on the Balance Dog Training podcast support the ICP
and we hope you will as well. Should I?
Can I give a piece of advice that it's sort of goes along
(07:02):
with Nelson's, but it's a littlebit different?
Yes, permission granted. Nice.
So I think that people, if they know that their dog's going to
have an issue, should plan on staying home for the 4th of July
regardless of if they're going to drug their dog or not.
If they're going to drug the dog, definitely be home,
(07:24):
especially if, like Nelson said,you haven't done it much in the
past. You're going to want to be
around that dog and make sure that they're doing OK whether
they're drugged or not, but especially if you're drugging
them for one of the first times.Well I'm glad you said that but
I feel like anyone who would drug their dog and know their
dog is scared of fireworks and then leave them it's just a dumb
(07:47):
ass. I can't imagine.
Then they'd come home like I can't believe my dog would.
Exist. And I don't think that's the
case. I feel like people try and make
themselves feel like it's going to be OK, right?
Like I took the the precautionary mess measures that
I have to by giving them the drugs and then that way I can go
out and go to a 4th of July party for the 4th of July
(08:08):
celebration and enjoy myself. So I.
Agree that they're trying to convince themselves, but I'd
still say they're a dumbass if they're able to convince
themselves of that. It's like if you're huffing
paint and you're like, I'm just going to do this once and like
it's not that bad. I'm not going to not going to
die. I'm doing this so I can tell
everybody else that it's a bad idea and don't, don't do it.
(08:29):
Take it from me, I've done it. Kids say no to drugs.
I've tried them a lot. Nelson Medrano, you need a shirt
that says that. All right, I I'm glad you said
that, Voss. I'm in agreement that people
should not do that. Definitely.
All right. So do we have any advice?
(08:50):
Like is there anything training wise people can do or do we just
kind of drug them and stay home?You don't think staying home was
training advice? I think that's pretty good
training advice. I would be running my dog out,
at least for the like. Let's see, the 4th of July is on
Friday, right? So.
(09:10):
I. Would I would start running them
out like crazy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning and
making sure that those dogs are exhausted and just want to sleep
through the day naturally anyways?
And then if you have to drug them then they'll probably take
to it even better anyways because they're already pre
(09:31):
exhausted. Agreed on the exercise for sure.
I feel like we should back up a bit though, maybe circle back to
the exercise. I mean I agree with you.
Getting the dog in recovery modeso they're just resting and
recuperating from vigorous exercise is going to make a
world of difference. But I would say if you've got a
week, there's a lot of other stuff we can do during that
(09:52):
week. And I would assume day of you
guys would both recommend obedience training as a calming
technique, right? For sure.
So I would suggest to anyone during the next week, there's
some things you need to make sure that your dog knows.
And these can all be trained in a week.
Even if the dog is fresh and doesn't know anything.
I would do the heel command without a doubt, which we'll
(10:13):
talk about later. If your dog doesn't understand
heel, it's not going to be very useful.
Left turns, right turns, Make sure your dog really, really
gets it. They can in the house, turn on a
use leash and they understand what you want from them.
And then I would teach them their obedience commands.
I would prefer you teach them sit down, stay and come before
the 4th of July. They all do different things and
(10:34):
they all can be used a little bit differently and we can talk
about when you might use different ones.
But I think getting the dog to understand all those commands in
the next week is well worth the effort, even if you're working a
couple hours a day and putting aton of effort into it between
now and then. Nelson you that's like can you
(10:54):
just time travel back a year andthen just like teach them
everything they're going to needto know and how a lot of common
you know that way you'll be ready for this year that will.
Get the time. Machine that would help a lot,
but I think you can do it in a week.
Teach those commands. We do it all the time with dogs
and we do it all the time with clients.
(11:14):
Like in a one year program, you know, the first week and we get
so much done. So there's the ability to do all
of this. Don't try it on the fourth.
You know, you want your dog to learn these commands now, But so
I would spend a week training and I think we should talk in a
few minutes like if we, you know, kind of talk about what to
do day of how to use all those commands.
But suffice it to say for now, teach all of them.
(11:37):
So Nelson, you started saying tostart the the tiring out process
before the 4th. Can you walk us through your
reasoning there? Yeah, one, one of the big things
that I've seen a ton is, I guessone thing that always comes to
mind is when dogs go to not, nota dog park, but like a daycare
(11:59):
or something like that, when they've actually stayed at a
kennel for a couple of days and then it takes a day or two to
recover. But that's because it's been an
extended amount of time of thosedogs being active, you know?
So even if you got your dog tired the morning of the 4th,
right, there's a good chance that the adrenaline is going to
(12:21):
be enough to get them right backinto action and they're not
going to be as tired as we thought they were, even though
we played a really long game of fetch.
What I would see being way more effective is running them out on
that Wednesday and then running them out on Thursday, playing
(12:42):
fetch, you know, both of those days as well, so that they are
continuously getting exhausted, never really fully being able to
recover. And then the morning of the 4th
as well, so that they literally require the rest of the day to
recover just to be able to kind of get all of their energy back.
(13:04):
Got it, love it and agreed. Another prep thing I would
suggest and I I suggest this to my clients a lot, I don't find
white noise generators to do very much for fireworks because
of the noise fireworks make the booming and you know the loud
shaking. I don't see that.
I'm not against the white noise generators, I just don't see
(13:24):
them being very helpful. So I don't think they're
certainly not bad. And for fireworks like high
pitched, like the ones that makelike sizzling noises in the air
and things like that, maybe theywork.
But the stuff that really seems to freak out the dogs are the
booms. And my experience, white noise
does nothing for that. What I do find to be helpful
though is to create sounds similar.
(13:45):
So I recommend to my clients to play music, especially in the
week leading up to it from a louder stereo like in the other
room with bass. So your dog gets used to some
booming noises. And some dogs, if they've got a
real firework issue, some dogs might be scared just from the
noise. Most aren't going to most are
(14:07):
going to like kind of ignore it.But what it does is it buys you
some time on the 4th where there's some noises that happen
and the dogs don't even pick up on because that music is
playing. It has to be pretty loud.
It you know, it can't just be like.
Softly in the background or exactly like that, yeah.
Yeah, it needs. And like, to me, it works best
when it's in the other room and it's a real stereo that's
(14:28):
putting out some actual bass. So I would suggest doing that
and make that a normal part of the dog's week.
And you could just turn it on every day at like 4:00 PM and
leave it on for a couple hours and get the dog used to that and
see if there's any issue whatsoever.
So you put the stereo in the other room and then the dog is
just kind of like free to roam in the house like normal.
(14:51):
Yeah. So I, I'm not, if a client has a
stereo with like a big setup in their living room, I'm not going
to say, well, we need to now putthat in the other room.
Yeah, sure. But overall, if you can like
let's say you are going to be hanging out in the bedroom, then
having it in the front room outside like so it's not right
in front of the dog, I find to be helpful.
(15:12):
And to me, it makes sense where you hear the noise coming from
all over the place, not just right next to them.
But I'm not super caught up on that, so if it's in the same
room, I don't think it's gonna ruin anything.
Are you stuck in the 90s covey? Does anyone still have a big
stereo set up? Yeah.
All they have is a sound bar under their TV.
(15:32):
That's all anyone ever has anymore.
That. Is good.
Have them big receivers, tower speakers.
No, I don't think anybody has that anymore.
I'm still impressed every time Isee someone's basement and they
have like the big screen TV and then the surround sound speakers
and all. Like the old big screen, Like
the wooden one. I I hope to never see one of
(15:54):
those ever again. I've had my my experiences.
I'm saying I'm more impressed bythe speaker setups than just the
big towers. The again the the stereo being
its own separate thing as opposed to just attached to ATV
on a Bluetooth speaker. So you were talking a lot about
sound here and I had a question on my list of things to talk
(16:18):
about. I don't know if it's a good
place to throw it out here or not, but.
Now what are? Your thoughts on fireworks as a
whole, the two of you, are you guys anti fireworks?
Are you pro fireworks? There's a big trend these days
of towns going away from fireworks and dogs are a big
reason why a lot of them are going to stuff like drone shows.
So what are your thoughts on that?
(16:42):
You want to take this? You want me to?
Nelson. I want you to because I'm going
to be probably more contrarian, so.
Well, I am exceedingly pro firework.
I'm not. Going to be contrarian then.
So I am very pro firework. I, you know, I buy boxes of the
cakes, you know, like, you know,that have all the mortars and
(17:03):
I'm like the one fuse you like that'll have like 20 or 30
things shoot out. Love doing those.
I think it's a lot of fun celebrating the 4th of July,
Independence Day. So I'm very pro fireworks and
I'm also pro dog. So the people that are always on
Facebook bitching and moaning about like my poor dog.
Well, your dog is only like thatbecause you haven't fixed it.
(17:24):
So the world shouldn't end because you haven't trained your
dog and found a way to help manage them.
And it's very doable. So I you know, and when I have a
client who has that issue, like I'm certainly not judge mental
about that issue going on. I'm like, let's fix it and let's
give this dog a way to cope and not have problems.
So very pro firework. The drone shows are cool.
(17:44):
I saw one at Dollywood. Amazing.
Man, see, that was the one thingthat we couldn't do at Dollywood
was the drone shows. Like I don't remember what
happened, but it was super, super cold and that I think they
were delayed by like half an hour or something like that,
which is it was already late andI didn't want to keep my kids up
that long so. It is super cool, I recommend
(18:07):
anyone watching it. It was actually cooler than most
fireworks shows. But I'll tell you what, I have a
little pushback when I've heard people say they're moving to the
drone shows because fireworks aren't good for the environment.
And our drones, like you have like literally 1000 drones
flying together with all these little lithium ion batteries.
That's not good for the environment like that.
(18:29):
Can you imagine that, those drones, the lifespan on them,
it's probably not very long. So I don't think it's a very
good substitute if you're sayingit's better for the environment
to fly 1000 drones in formation.One of the other reasons was
safety, but I think it was last year where there was that drone
show accident where a bunch of them crashed and then landed on
people in the audience. Which I mean, I know that an
(18:50):
explosion in the audience is badfrom a fireworks show, but it
seemed like there were some pretty, you know, some pretty
hefty injuries from that too. So I don't know if they're all
that safe either. The FAA is very very strict on
flying overhead of people for that reason is because a drone
coming out of the sky will take someone out pretty quickly.
(19:13):
So everybody's pro firework. I'm pro firework too, maybe less
than both of you. But the drone shows to me it
just aren't quite 4th of July ish enough.
Like you said, cool, but it doesn't have that, doesn't have
that same. Feeling.
Yeah, it's different, but they are pretty neat.
Yeah, you know, I, I don't feel bad for the dogs at all.
(19:33):
You know, again, I'm with you, Covey.
And the fact that all of their anxiety and fear could have been
managed and fixed and you could have had a A normally.
So fine dog. Can we rephrase that?
I bet you said you don't feel bad for the dogs at all.
I I don't feel bad for the clot the the owners at all.
(19:55):
I feel bad for the dogs cuz their owners haven't trained
them. All right, that's fair.
I'll give you that. That's I'm assuming that's what
you meant, right? Yes.
That is closer to what I meant for sure.
So I will definitely, you know, concede that one.
But again, fireworks have been around forever.
It is it's an American traditionto use fireworks.
(20:17):
I feel bad for the veterans. So if there was a if there was
an argument that I could start to see it and it hasn't really
changed my mind yet, but I'm certainly closer to the mark
with the fact that a lot of veterans come back with PTSD and
that that might, you know, sparkthat.
(20:38):
I think that's a real argument. But when it comes like the dogs
and stuff like that, I mean, we've been using dogs for
hunting forever, you know, and we hunt with guns and they're
just as loud, if not louder thanfireworks.
And those dogs are happy to hearit, right?
They're happy to hear those shot, those shotguns so that
(21:00):
they can run off and go do theirjob and stuff like that.
So, you know, the sound is to the dog, whatever it is that we
allow it to be. And so if they got scared, we'd
fix it, you know, that kind of stuff.
So I don't think dogs as a validargument for ending fireworks
makes a ton of sense when I feellike fireworks and that
(21:21):
community stuff that you really only see on the 4th of July
nowadays it's probably more important.
Well, and I think we might have buried the lead a little bit at
the beginning of the podcast. You know, the reason we're
talking about this is because more dogs go missing on the 4th
of July than any other holiday any other day.
So, you know, it is a big thing.It happens to a lot of people.
(21:42):
A lot of dogs have issues here so.
That's why we're talking about. This.
I'll tell you what I know on next door.
I see in my area every 4th of July so many dogs that escaped
through a gate and got loose andyou see and you're like, what is
wrong with you people? Like you're leaving a dog
outside in an unsecured gate on the 4th of July.
(22:05):
Like it just. I can't wrap my head around
that. And so maybe that's why I'm
always in shock of the fact thatpeople are still bringing that
up because I don't live in the South like you guys.
But it's hard to imagine that inIllinois at least, you know,
heavily populated parts of Illinois, that people still have
(22:25):
their dogs outside while the fireworks are going on.
You know, like, it just doesn't seem what I see and hear of,
especially from clients way moreoften is that their dogs are
terrified under a bed and just stressed out for, you know,
hours and hours on end, right? And lick themselves raw, or, you
know, chew on themselves, that kind of stuff as opposed to
(22:46):
getting loose. Don't forget the majority of
Illinois is rural too. That is right, you live in a
city. You're you're a city slicker,
but there's a city slicker in Illinois.
There's no doubt about that. So before we move on, I, if any
veterans want to weigh in, in the comments, love to hear from
you. I've asked a lot of veterans
this over the years and I've actually never heard some one of
(23:06):
them say they would like to get rid of fireworks.
And their reasoning has always been that it's freedom and
people should be able to live their life and within reason do
what they want. If any veteran feels different,
I mean, I I think it's a good conversation to have because if
enough veterans felt like they needed firework free zones, that
makes a lot of sense. But I've never heard one
(23:28):
actually. Say that, yeah, I would be super
interested to, you know, know what it is that that community
really thinks because again, that's the only argument that
even starts to make sense to me.OK, so we've talked about drone
(23:48):
shows, fireworks, drugs, all kinds of good stuff, Nelson.
This is the 4th of July. You had said start exercising
heavily a couple days before. I agree completely.
It's cumulative. It just is and it it makes a
huge a world of difference. I'm with you 100%.
(24:09):
Busy week leading up to the 4th,4th of July comes.
If you know when the fireworks are going to go off, that's
great. It helps you plan.
Generally it depends where you live, but most places it's not
all that wild during the day andit starts getting louder in the
evening. But whatever.
Hopefully you know your area. I would do a few things.
(24:29):
One like Nelson opened with I would get the dog into basically
recovery mode. What the way I explained that,
and I think we talked about thisin the separation anxiety
episode, would be that your dog is exercising.
You have to do this within reason.
Don't be an idiot, but get your dog really tired.
The goal is that they are layingon the floor panting and that's
(24:50):
all they want to do is cool off and you have to use judgment.
Obviously it's the 4th of July, it's going to be hot out.
Like if you don't know how to tell if your dog is too hot,
that's a problem. Obviously you don't want to
cause heat stroke or heat exhaustion.
Those are huge deals. So don't do that if you need to
do some research on what that looks like.
But your dog, in my opinion, should be laying on the floor
(25:12):
panting heavily. The things I watch for that
worry me is when a dog can't catch their breath.
So if you have your dog who's like panting and they're like
shutting their mouth open and open and shut and like licking
like that is probably too much. They should just be tongue out,
big heavy pant, wanting to lay on a cool floor somewhere to
relax that that's what I would be looking for.
(25:33):
And I would try to time that pretty close to before the
fireworks start because they're not going to be in recovery mode
for that long. And you know, a lot of that
depends on your dog though, of course.
So I'll tell you what I think right now is a great time that
we take a break and that we jumpinto 62nd questions where we
call a trainer. The question today is right
(25:53):
online with what you're talking about right now.
So I think right now is the perfect time to do that.
We need like a sound effect. So I could have like stopped you
from talking and like hit the sound effect.
So, you know, it's 62nd QuestionTime.
You know what's weird is now with me using my phone to do
this, I get sucked into like I was already checking e-mail.
(26:14):
Like I pick up my phone and my brain just tells me like check
e-mail and you guys are talking.I'm like, that's ridiculous.
I don't know, I might be addicted to this phone.
ESPN sound is like in my head right now.
I'm like. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh duh.
Like I need we need some type ofintro.
For sure. So I'm calling Sam.
Sam. Let's start with Sam, Yeah?
(26:34):
OK, Sam, Doug, let's see what happens here.
(26:54):
Hello, Matt Cubby. Sam, you are live on balanced
training with suburban canine. Oh God.
OK, here we go. How are you?
Good. Me and Zach are actually sitting
down for lunch between appointments.
Hi, Zach. Nice.
Should I put Zach on the spot too?
Sure, but you have to answer ourquestion.
(27:15):
OK, would it be helpful if I satin the car to have better sound?
No, this is perfect. OK.
I'm going to put you on speaker.So we are on live and the
suburban canine pad and we're getting tested right now by a
company founder, Matt Covey. So we're ready for your
questions. OK, so Vloss, I have to read the
question, don't I? Yep, but I got the timer.
(27:38):
This is a lot. I have to switch tabs.
We have a document right? Vloss?
OK, here's the question. You have 60 seconds to answer
this. A client says I am having guests
over for the 4th of July. I have a nine month old dog and
since getting him we haven't hada party or had him around
fireworks. What can I do between now and
(27:58):
the party to get the puppy ready?
What should I do with my puppy during the party?
God. OK, first I want to ask age of
or breed of dog? Cattle Dog of.
Course it is. And has he met anybody in like
small settings or has he met anyother family members?
(28:21):
Any other people social before this?
Or is it no people social since the party?
None. Great, and it's June 26th as it
is today. Yes, cool.
Has the dog been crated ever before?
By the way, she has 30 seconds left.
You only have 30 seconds left. Goodness, he has.
(28:41):
So we have. To work on heal command and some
basic obedience as fast as we can.
To get a little bit of an introduction process started so
we can start working on possibletreat tosses or interactions in
public. Have to talk about if we're
going to what kind of tools we're going to use depending
upon the dog and if it is reactive because it's a kennel
dog. And then we just get to meet as
much people as possible. Then we're going to start
(29:03):
building up positive associationor at least desensitization with
sounds. So we can use speakers and
thunderstorms and loud fireworkssounds and slowly turning up
volumes, but it needs to happen in lots of fast increments as
soon as possible. Probably at least two hours of
training a day do. I have any more time left?
No, you're you're over you. You are asking questions.
(29:23):
So. Cattle Dog does print off this
day, so if it was a doodle that would probably change my answer
a little bit. So we have to change the rules
of this game and for now on, tell people no questions
allowed. You get what you got and you
just imagine. So that was a lot.
That was some, that was some good advice.
We're doing a 4th of July episode as we speak about
(29:44):
fireworks, and so we're going topost this before the 4th.
Love it, so exciting. I usually have if clients have
multiple speakers or like Alexa Siri systems that I'll have them
around the house and I have a certain playlist.
I have them on Spotify or what'sthe other one?
Pandora, whatever other mute Apple that I show them like the
(30:05):
playlist and then I just have them play on low settings for
thunderstorms and fireworks around the house.
OK, love that. Can you send us a link to that
playlist? Is that a thing you can link to
that we can put in the description of this this
podcast? Yeah, fair warning.
It has a bunch of other weird stuff on there like car noises,
baby noises, dog noises, and if you leave it playing while you
(30:28):
go into a client's home and thenyour car connects to your phone
automatically, you will have those noises playing in your car
as soon as. You get in.
That's awesome. That sounds delightful.
Baby noises barking. Yeah, Cool.
There's like a. Washer machine?
Yeah, I'll send that to you guys.
Do you want e-mail or text? Whatever, I'm just going to pop
it in. It's going to be amazing.
And we're going to credit because we're going to say
(30:50):
courtesy of Sam. Sam, perfect.
Can't wait. All right, Yeah, you won.
You actually got first place. All right.
Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Sam.
Talk. To you later.
Bye. So let me ask you 2 based off of
(31:10):
her answer. What about doing something
completely different? What about telling the person
that they should try and board their dog for that instead?
I mean you got a party with a ton of people.
They're going to have to be paying attention to the people
and their guests. The odds of them being able to
pay attention to their dog are slim.
You also have the added issue offireworks and not knowing if the
(31:33):
dogs good or bad with fireworks right?
What do you think about boardingthere?
I think in that situation it makes a ton of sense.
You know, if you, if you waited too long, I, if you have a week
like we have now, I think no matter what, even if your plan
is to board, you should still get the heel done, the, the
recall done. And especially downstate would
(31:54):
probably be the one I'd be harping on a lot that we haven't
really talked about too much. But downstate would be one that
I'd be focusing on. And I think a lot of vets will
do kind of boarding situations and stuff like that.
And I always feel pretty good about that because again, if
(32:15):
they had to administer any kind of drugs, they, you know, the
vet is right there. So that's always a good thing.
I would encourage you if you leave a dog with a vet to check
out their boarding facility because some have real boarding
and others just have like heavy duty metal cages that they use
after dog surgery and the dog stays in there overnight which
(32:37):
would really suck for the dog. For sure.
I would look for a vet that actually does boarding, not just
you know they'll board your dog when it's injured.
However, that does bring up one of the things that I was going
to say too is if your dog is crate trained or you are
(32:57):
planning to use a crate, fortifying that crate is kind of
a must to me, right? So if I just have a regular wire
crate, I'm going to be using a bunch of zip ties all of all
around the edges to make sure that it, you know, it's
indestructible to the best of myabilities there.
(33:18):
But if you have a stress ball dog that's very, very nervous
about thunderstorms and fireworks, maybe it starts to
make more sense to invest in oneof the more heavy duty crates
like gunner kennels and impact crates and and those those
similar ones. Can I just throw something out
there with zip ties? I don't like the zip tie option
(33:42):
because when you put them on there, generally speaking, you
tighten it and then you clip theend, right?
And when you clip the end, it leaves like a jagged, sharp
little edge. And when that spins around, if
the dog's trying to get out, it can really cut their gums up
quite a bit. So I prefer, and we've talked
about this I think before, just like the clips that would be on
(34:03):
a leash. You can buy those at the Home
Depot and put those on the corners of the crate to hold
them together and they're prettycheap and generally speaking, I
think a safer option, so. That's a good tip, but I wonder
like does that because I haven'thad now, obviously I'm I do
something about it. So it's not like the dogs would
(34:24):
ever get as bad with me at my house as they would with an
owner, but I've never had a dog actually cut themselves.
I I definitely see what you're saying though.
There is that little sharp bit right at the end.
Super sharp, it's like a knife. Definitely, I mean, I've cut
myself on it for sure, right? I haven't had a dog cut
themselves, but I have. But I I wonder if just using the
(34:45):
clips changes the fact that theyhave more give right?
And that kind of keeps a dog trying harder.
I mean for sure depends on clip size.
So I use clips and I use the smaller brass ones.
And when you're connecting 2 bars of a wire cage, it ends up
being tight, really tight. So there's no spinning.
(35:06):
But if you use like a big heavy duty brass, you're right for
sure. It'll have you know, I don't
know, quarter inch in between the two bars and compose an
issue. Kind of.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Screwing around there, yeah.
All right, so day of, you've gotmusic playing, maybe you've got
your dog in recovery mode and fireworks happen and the dog
(35:32):
looks a little bit and what do you do?
Do you immediately run over and pet him and say it's OK, don't
be scared, What do you do? No, that's actually a really
good, really good .1. Don't cuddle your dog, it'll
only make it worse. And a lot of times you over
stimulate them even more so thanthey already are.
(35:54):
If they are racing around. Like if if they're pacing around
frantically around the house, stopping that is super
important. You know, I would probably stop
it with a, you know, a no and a tug if I think that that's going
to work. If not, again, This is why I
said to focus on those down stays.
He's getting them to lay down somewhere and focus on being
(36:15):
there is is going to be beneficial.
But I'll be honest with you. I mean, both of those options
are really predicated on the fact that they'll work.
And if they won't, it's all about the heal.
You know, you could, I don't recommend it, but you could
teach heal the day of the 4th ofJuly.
It's just not going to be good. But I'll still be 75% effective,
(36:40):
right? You're still pacing the dog
around, even if it's doing a really crappy job, but it's just
not getting as calm as it shouldbe as quickly as it should be.
So if you have nothing else, if you didn't get to teach all the
commands or anything like that, throw your dog on a leash and
start pacing around. Keep him with you.
Keep him not necessarily busy, but you know as you're prepping
(37:03):
for whatever your night is goingto look like, they might as well
be right next to you. So I have a couple thoughts
there. One is the training.
What you're everything you do isgoing to be dependent on what
your dog does. Your dog could do many things.
So if your dog just looks when they hear the noise, I would
(37:23):
just ignore it. And if they look a little
stressed, I would probably ignore that too and think about
when you have like I know you'vegot still, your kids are still
young, Nelson. Think like when a kid falls and
skin like skins, their knee. Sometimes you say nothing.
You just look from a distance and they look left, they look
right, they get up, they look attheir name, they go right back
to plane. But if you run over there and
they see you, all of a sudden, there's, at least in my
(37:46):
experience, way more likely to be tears and things start.
So I would just let it play out for a second.
I would just watch. Now if your dog gets up and
bolts to hide, well then you know, like you've got to step
in. If they're just kind of looking
left and right, there's a chanceI'm going to do absolutely
nothing. I would also suggest anyone have
something really high value thatthe dog likes and try to give
(38:10):
them some, you know, something fun to chew on.
And this comes down to how scared your dog is.
If your dog is scared of dying, they're not going to want to eat
something. So if your dog's at like just to
make up numbers a level 10 and they're terrified beyond belief
and you go like chasing after them with a marrow bone, it's
not going to do anything. It's not going to help.
But if your dog just a little bit nervous, if they heard like
(38:31):
a little boom and they're like, what was that?
And but they can't quite tell, that's the music or the
firework. And you go over and get a marrow
bone and hand it to them. There's a really good chance
that this bone's going to be awesome and they're going to
rather chew that and they're going to be distracted and
happy. So I would try that if possible.
And then the other thing I wouldtry would be playing with them.
If they have a game, they play. Some dogs don't have the game.
(38:55):
And if if they don't, it's probably a little bit too late
to teach them if you're doing day of.
But could be fetch, could be tugof war, could be, I mean hide
and go seek. Anything you do with your dog,
if you can find something to keep them busy, that's fun.
I would do that. And then, but very often those
aren't going to work and you're going to have to use obedience
because if your dog like what Nelson, you set up a minute ago,
(39:16):
if your dog is running and pacing, they're probably not
going to stop The Chew the bone and they're probably not going
to like come play tug of war. And you can't make them play if
they don't feel like it. And that's when obedience will
be crucial to, you know, to givethem something to do, you know,
to calm them down. Definitely.
(39:37):
So you got something looks. Like I was going to say, I mean,
I think you guys nailed addressing this stuff.
One thing that I feel like I've noticed though from the two of
you talking about it is it sounds like you're talking
mainly about dogs that are scared of fireworks.
And I think there can be a couple of different types of dog
issues towards fireworks. Now I'll give you a story So.
(40:02):
I think when I adopted Zilla back in the day, it was a week
before the 4th of July and we took him to 1/4 of July party
and we were naive dog owners at the time, right?
Really. Didn't you know, it wasn't a dog
trainer yet at this point. You know, when I got Zilla it
was before I ever had any real dog training experience or
anything like that. So we had him loose at the
(40:22):
party, he was hanging out havinga great time.
And as it got dark outside, someof the kids went to the back of
the yard to shoot off fireworks and they had Roman candles and
they were shooting them at each other.
Well, Zilla wasn't a wasn't afraid of the fireworks.
Zilla wanted to kill the fireworks, right?
So he ran after them, was tryingto get the Roman candle out of
their hands. And luckily they held him up
(40:43):
over their head, right. And he didn't get to it.
But I guess my my question with the story is, is your advice
different for dogs that aren't necessarily scared but sort of
want to go after the fireworks? Is it a different situation or
is all the? Definitely more corrections than
just jumping into management, right?
(41:05):
So I'm probably not going to be jumping into just trying to get
them a bone or something like that to distract them.
If the dog is not scared and actually having a problem with
the fireworks, there's there's away better chance that I'm
actually going to just move to correcting for the behavior and
then calming them down after that.
(41:26):
I agree with you there, Nelson. So I had said earlier that I
would, we'd talk through when you would use each command and
let's just I'd like to give a little information to people on
that. So we already talked about when
to use the heal command. If your dog is pacing and is
just going bonkers, you run in circles.
(41:48):
I would heal them until they're calm.
And I consider, and I think I'vesaid this in previous episodes,
I'm sure I have, you know, all commands in order.
He'll sit, sit, stay down, down,stay and then come.
And if you can't do the previousone in the order, generally
speaking, you're not going to doa later 1.
So if you can't heal your dog calmly in that environment,
stay. It's not very fair.
It's probably going to go poorlyand don't let them off lation
(42:11):
call them to you. Probably not going to go well if
you can't walk them without themfreaking out.
So go in order, take your time. So this is not a race.
So if the fireworks are going onfor let's say an hour or two
hours, I don't know if you calmly work your dog the whole
time and there's no big freak out, that's a success.
So just, and I think it's important for people to know, if
(42:34):
you're trying to fix this a weekahead of time, you're not going
to fix it. You're going to give yourself a
bunch of good management tools to make your dog's night better.
And then you can work on really fixing it over the next year to
where this issue isn't a problem, but you might spend the
entire evening working with yourdog.
And that's just, that's to me, part of having a dog.
You've, you have this issue withyour dog, it's on you to fix it.
(42:54):
So you've got to, you know, giveyour dog a good night.
So you might be really busy. Different commands going to
start with heal when that's going really well, when it feels
pointless, I might work some down stays and just practice,
you know, having the dog hold a down stay, knock on the door,
throw a ball past them, anythingjust to kind of be distracting.
And then I would do a lot of work on come as well because
(43:16):
come is exciting. It's fun.
You know, you call the dog to you tons of praise for them
listening. So I would do a lot of that as
well. But just the biggest thing is go
in order and you might spend, ifyour dog's really freaked out,
you might spend like 90% of yourtime on heel.
It could be a huge percentage oftime that that's OK, definitely.
(43:40):
So we. Didn't talk.
We we've set this whole thing up, but being a week.
Thanks for rejoining, Velos. Good to see you again.
Yeah, storming like crazy. Out there.
Welcome to Florida. Welcome to Florida.
So one thing. We haven't talked about is how
to fix it if you have more than a week.
What I would suggest is it's outside the scope of this
(44:00):
episode, but we have other we'vetalked about this other times
and other episodes I believe anddefinitely in some YouTube
videos. But I would create, I would
practice with fireworks and starter pistols over the course
of the year. And if you say, well, I live in
like downtown in a big city and I can't do that, I don't know, I
guess go suburb Illinois. Yeah, go outside of town.
(44:22):
To where you can do it, but even22 by.
Fours when you clap together 22 by fours, there's a lot of
concussion and a really loud noise.
So I mean, I guess maybe that's weird to some people too to have
to get that, but 2 short 2 by fours really make a loud noise
when you clap them together. Yep, they do I.
Bought a bunch of those little poppet.
(44:43):
Things as a as a starter. Those never fix the problem,
just so that you know everyone listening knows it.
It's still a minor sound compared to what a real firework
would be, but it's a good place to start, conquer that, and then
you're ready to kind of move on to some of the bigger stuff as
well, so. So overall, if your dog has
(45:05):
major issues with this and you just tackle it each 4th of July,
you're never really going to fixthe issue.
You're just going to get better and better at managing it.
They need to be exposed to it more and that, you know, they
need to be desensitized to it, you know, to where it's not this
super stressful thing. And we've talked, I think we
talked a little bit about this when we talked about counter
conditioning in an episode. But you know, the idea something
(45:28):
exciting happens, something goodhappens along with those
fireworks. And the desensitization is
teaching them how to feel calm, you know, around that.
So I'd be lighting off fireworksfrom a long distance and
training the dog on leash, trying to give them something
good, trying to pair it with firework happens.
We heal to you're nice and calm.Here's some food, anything you
can do to calm them down and andhave some good experiences.
(45:51):
And you might start with Black Cats like 100 yards away and
then you get slowly closer and then maybe you now you move up
to like getting some bigger fireworks, but or a starter
pistol. But to fix this, you're going to
have to work on it sounds like acommercial for.
Fireworks companies to help yourdog buy more fireworks.
(46:13):
And might be an unpopular opinion, but if you want to fix
it you're going to have to be lighting off some stuff that's
for. Sure, or be comfortable firing a
gun. Or a starter pistol.
Otherwise you're just going to be doing this every single year
forever. And then I feel bad for the dog
where nothing's done and the dog's just like wallowing in
fear every 4th and they lose thewhole day.
(46:35):
Right. I mean, at least around us, even
though fireworks are illegal, I mean day, Well, sure, the entire
month, four days at least. At least.
Yeah, I mean, they've, they started like a month ago around
me. But you know, again, that's so
inconsistent, I never know when it's going to happen.
If I had a dog that was really struggling here, I mean, I would
(46:57):
assume that a lost dog would happen days before the 4th as
opposed to on the 4th itself, just because those are the, you
know, usually you'll know when the show is and you'll have a
general idea of when all the noise is happening.
The days before you have no idea.
Yeah, you have to. And I kind of said this earlier,
you have to know your area for sure.
(47:18):
I live in Tennessee. So that means it's 10 days
before and 10 days after the 4thand then the same on New Year's,
right in this down here in Florida.
It's crazy how much fireworks are for New Year's and not the
4th of July. I feel like New Year's actually
might be the bigger fireworks holiday.
(47:38):
That's interesting. Which when you're.
In the Midwest, that's. Not something you have to deal
with as much. People aren't going to be out
there freezing their fingers off, shooting off fireworks.
The fireworks might freeze. In the air they might.
There's a chance it's not that cold.
That's. That's February and February
that would happen. All right, did we cover
(47:59):
everything? I think so.
So this is. Very doable.
I would encourage anyone listening to work hard with your
dog or if you're a trainer, you know, pass this on to your
clients who are struggling with this issue.
Very doable to make it a lot better.
And just remember, it's basically just management unless
you're going to set this up during the course of the year.
(48:20):
And some people just manage on ayearly basis.
But the stuff you do in the weekahead of time changes it from
easy management, I'm sorry, fromimpossible to manage to fairly
easy management. If you do everything we talked
about, it doesn't mean your dog's going to be perfect and
have a great night and love every second of it, but it's not
going to be a fiasco. And we didn't specifically say
(48:40):
this, but if you let your dog hide, that issue's going to get
worse every single year. So if your dog is allowed to go
hide in a closet and shake and you're like, well, I mean, he
seems happy there, it's better than barking or whatever.
Next year's going to be worse. And so is the year after, and
it's going to get to the point where Thunder sets them off and
then little things set them off.This problem is going to morph
(49:01):
and grow and get worse and worseand worse.
So do not let them do that. Also take your dogs.
Out on a leash when you let themgo to the bathroom.
If you have a stressful dog it'sit's worth the annoyance of
having to walk out there with them.
That's true. And if you just.
Rescued a pit boxer mix named Zilla.
Don't take it to your friend's house and let it off leash while
(49:24):
kids light off Roman candles. Definitely don't do that.
Live and learn. All right.
Well, thank you for listening, everybody.
Have a great day. Thanks everyone.
(49:45):
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