My really annoying neighbours have been letting off one firework per night ever since before halloween! What can possibly be the fun of getting all wrapped up to light one firework. All it does is send my five dogs crazy for the rest of the evening. I thought to myself, 'right, lets crack it tonight, all out for wees before it gets dark and hopefully the lonely firework will be lit whilst they are in and before bed'. Oh no, yesterday, they set it off just before it got dark!

What makes it even worse is that we think the person letting off the 'firework' has dogs! How inconsiderate!

Now my five don't get to the stage where they need medication but it certainly puts them off going out in the garden for a bit and they take a lot longer to calm down when they come in.

On firework night itself, we take the dogs to the middle of the peak district for a walk where we can look down at all the fireworks in the distance but without hearing the bangs.

How does everybody else get through bonfire night?

> How does everybody else get through bonfire night?

My dog doesn't bother about the bangs. The only time he ever jumped was when a group of people gathered for a funeral (midday) let off the loudest bang I ever heard in my life, the dog jumped (all feet off the ground - LOL so did I!!) but he quickly recovered and became curious, then got fed up and forgot about it.

My last dog used to get all flustered (we got him as an adult) so we turned firework noises into a que for ball games, he soon learnt to ignore the bangs and was no problem on the many occasion we had friends around for our own firework displays in our garden, infact he was more interested in trying to scrounge food from guests than the fireworks.

My two are bonproof and usually look out of the window at the fireworks. Too busy playing fetch or sleeping.

You don't live next door to my Dad by any chance? He gets so excited by fireworks that he is usually the one setting off odd rockets in the run up to the main night

My dog doesn't bother about the bangs. The only time he ever jumped was when a group of people gathered for a funeral (midday) let off the loudest bang I ever heard in my life, the dog jumped (all feet off the ground - LOL so did I!!) but he quickly recovered and became curious, then got fed up and forgot about it

lol well iv never heard of that before people letting off fireworks at a Funeral how odd were they trying to wake the dead lol,

my 2 bullys dont seem to even notice the fireworks but my rottie will try to chase the rockets so we have to keep him well out the way , i think he thinks its some kind of game ,

i got 2 small boxes today for my son they were buy one get one free so thats why i got 2 boxes ,
what i did notice this year was that in the leaflets you get in the supermarkets they have given the packs you can buy ratings of noise level i thought that was good as my son dont like the REALY loud ones he gets scared so i was pleased with that,

we shall do like every year walk the dog earlier then we'll light the fireworks all as quickly as possibal to get it all over with then come in doors shut the door close the curtins and snuggle up in the warm and watch a good film, :-D

> ol well iv never heard of that before people letting off fireworks at a Funeral how odd were they trying to wake the dead lol

May have been a gun salute?  Although usually more than one...

I've just been shown a new product by my vet called Calmex. I've had trouble with some neighbours releasing fireworks a little early (dread to think what bonfire night will be like!), anyway, one Calmex capsule calms my dog right down and he doesn't even seem to care about the fireworks.

Apparently, you can use it with a desensitisation programme to help treat phobias really well!

I wonder if this is similar to Zylkene?

They are quite different actually, Zylkene is a milk protein with a (still!) unknown means of effect (although they think it is something to do with GABA) where as the active product of Calmex is a kavalactone from P. methysticum (as well as all the B vitamins, and serotonin precursors).

Calmex is much better for acute situations, such as fireworks, visits to vets/groomers, new environments, visitors etc.

As you can tell I've been doing my reading, I am actually quite fascinated with this product and its good to be able to chat about it on these forums, I think its quite interesting. 

James watt, are you connected with calmex sales? I'm just wondering because you are a new poster and all 6 posts pushing this product :-)

My thoughts exactly

Not really no, my vet did ask me to spread the word a bit (he recommended this forum!) but I am really pleased with the results I've seen so far!

Is this the same product that has L-Tryptophan and L-Theanine in it?

There seems to be a similarly named product used frequently for race/competition horses here too... 

foiled again :)