Hi All

Just wondering whether anybody else has had the problems i have got with Hamish, he is a 3 1/2 yr old westie, who ever since we had him has hated firework night and will whine/pace and hypervenilate for ages (it sometimes looks like he will have a heartattack), we tried at first to calm him down by talking and sitting on the floor with him but this made him worse then people told me to just ignore him which is what we do but it still doesn't seem to work, as soon as he hears a loud noise he is off and even when the noise is gone he still whines and paces for ages, i know he cannot help it but some times it does get on your nerves as he just doesn't stop!!
He has now got to the stage with the nights drawing in that whether he associates this with fireworks i don't know but he will lay in his bed in the living room and suddenly start whining and sitting bolt upright, when he goes out the garden before bed time he darts out there zooming around and looking up at the sky and is a bugger to get back inside, that even when no fireworks are going off.
I feel ever so sorry for him because he is a lovely dog but the noise problem seems lately to be getting worse he just cannot seem to cope with any noise, he suffers from atopy and is on Atopica tablets to help his skin which has worked dramatically and he is absolutely fine now other than his reactions to noise.
Somebody advised me to put him onto ACP tablets which i am not keen on, and he would need this most of the time because he reacts to any noise in the evenings at the moment, i have heard that 'calmer' is very good and i have contacted topspec for more details.
He has about 1 month ago been castrated so i am not sure whether this would have anything to do with it or not? He is not a viscious dog and is laid back during the day unless he hears noise in the garden or outside then he will bark which is understandable but he is a bag of nerves in the evenings when the dark comes, but when he goes to bed and is in the pitch black he is fine?

Thanks
Helen

We had this problem with our Border Collie x Springer, Jess, who is now no longer with us.  All her life she was frightened of noises, particularly gunshot and thunder.  We tried a few homeopathic calming remedies, which didn't work for Jess, and I didn't want to put her on anything stronger.  We decided to try 'desensitisation' (Sp?) and that had quite a good result.  We got a tape from the library of soundeffects which contained rolling thunder, trains, things that she would be frightened of.  We began by playing this tape during the day, very very quietly at first.  She was initially scared of the noise, but we left it on and ignored her and the noise.  When she began to relax we would praise her.  After a few days we would turn the stereo up a bit and go through the whole process again.  It got to the point that when in the house she would settle and unless it was a really loud storm she would be happy to stay in her bed and sleep.  When the nights drew in and the danger of fireworks was around we used to take her out into the garden on a long line so we could get her back in again, and when it was the shooting season I never let her off her lead as once she heard a gunshot and ran the 3 miles home at top speed.  Luckily there were no roads, just fields, but I learnt a lesson there!

Also, although it is very difficult, try to be calm yourself.  Your dog will pick up that you feel nervous which will reinforce his opinion that these noises are to feared.  Very difficult to do though with a petrified dog, you are so worried for them.

Good luck!

Louise

I consulted a homeopathic vet who prescribed phosphorus 200c and it makes a huge difference to my lakelands. Last year, for the first time, I tried melatonin (you have to get it over the net as it's not sold in the UK) which I gave every day during the firework season and that really helped too.

I have to put my boy in a crate and cover it with a blanket when there are fireworks going off as he would be likely to hurt himself otherwise.

Melatonin, Regulin, is a prescription only medicine in the UK so I am not sure of the legal implications of giving it to an animal without any veterinary input.  Buying medicines over the net is also risky as many drugs sold in this way are counterfeit being useless at best and positively dangerous at worst.