How to Keep Your Puppy Calm and Safe During Fireworks!

More pups go missing on July 4th than any other day of the year! We share this not to scare, but so puppy parents can be aware and prepare to make this holiday the happy, fun and celebratory day it’s supposed to be! In this blog we’re sharing some easy steps you can take to prep your pup for the 4th of July festivities and ensure their safety!

 
fireworks safety for puppies

The Puppy Academy student: Georgia!

 

As we mentioned, more pets go missing on July 4th than any other holiday. Pups who are generally afraid of loud noises such as thunder like garbage trucks will most likely be susceptible to being anxious with fireworks. The sounds, flashing lights can and even the smells pose sensory overloads for our puppies. But preparing beforehand, especially with a new puppy that has never experienced fireworks before, can make a world of difference.

So how do you keep your puppy calm during fireworks?

  • Through desensitization

  • Creating a safe space

  • Providing comfort

  • Planning for emergency situations, and

  • Taking extra precautions so you will be ready to keep your puppy calm, happy, and safe during the festivities!

Let’s get into each of these!

Puppy Training for Desensitization

A practical method to help your puppy learn not to fear fireworks, and other loud noises, is through desensitization training. This is part of our training with all our puppies at The Puppy Academy and we get incredible feedback from their owners!

This desensitization training entails building your pup’s confidence around startling noises by introducing them slowly and practicing training routines around them with your pup. As your pup does better and becomes more comfortable, you can increase the volume of the noises during your sessions.

If you don’t live near our school in Hermosa Beach, CA, our Online Puppy Training School can walk you through these routines step-by-step and will provide a variety of effective training techniques you can practice at home to help you.

Desensitization does take time and patience, so it’s important to begin doing this far in advance and build on your pup’s exposure gradually prior to the 4th of July or other activities.

For more information on our puppy training help with desensitization, visit the The Puppy Academy Online School!

Keep Your Puppy Away from Fireworks

As much as we want to include our puppies in all our festivities, it is fairer to your pup and safer for them to remain at home, where they can be comfortable and monitored under the care of a family member or pet sitter. Having your puppy with you around fireworks can put them under unneeded stress and anxiety, and increase the chances of them getting loose and running away.

Create a Safe Place For Your Puppy

The safest place for your puppy during fireworks is indoors, at home. Many puppies will instinctively seek out tight-fitting spaces when they are anxious, like under the bed, couch, or between furniture. If you’ve already crate trained your puppy, their crate can provide a great safe escape from the commotion.

Along with using the crate, block out as much visibility and sound to the fireworks as possible by covering your pup’s crate with towels or blankets (make sure to allow for some airflow), and lower the shades. Creating a “zen room” for your puppy in a separate room of the house that can be closed off to reduce outside noise, and has their crate in there for extra security and comfort, can be a great help for this! Playing white noise, like the TV, fan, or other sounds like calming music or even podcasts for the comfort of conversation can help keep your puppy calm during fireworks.

Exercise and Walk Your Puppy

Another great way to help keep your puppy calm during fireworks is to give your puppy enough time to walk, play, and do their business prior to the fireworks! By providing your puppy both mental and physical activity prior to the fireworks, you’re helping to stimulate their brain which in turn will help get them tired and make it easier for them to settle down.  

Do training routines, take your puppy for a walk or have outdoor playtime with them while it's still daylight, to reduce the risk of fireworks startling your puppy while you're still outdoors. If your puppy needs to go out to potty when it's dark, keep them on a leash to take them out and ensure their harness, leash, and your yard are all secured in case your pup tries to dash! Try to settle your puppy down in their crate before the fireworks start so they have some quiet time to really calm down, get comfortable, and feel safe.

 

The Puppy Academy students: Cosmo and Cassie!

 

Secure the Exits

Make sure to double-check that all entrances and exits (doors, gates, fences, windows, etc.) are securely closed and locked. Anxious puppies will seek out shelter from the noise and can easily bolt out of an open exit if left unchecked. Puppies have even been known to tear through screen doors and jump over tall backyard fences to escape in a panicked state, so take the steps to make sure your home is as secure as possible before fireworks even begin.

Provide Your Pup with Comfort

Your presence or that of a trusted person will provide your puppy with a world of confidence and help keep them calm during fireworks and other loud noises. Help your puppy cope with their anxiety by just sitting with them nearby, or practicing some easy commands with them to get their mind working on something positive! 

Avoid coddling or over-petting your puppy, which can feed into their fear and anxiety. Instead, use an upbeat tone with single clear words to encourage them, as if you’re in training mode! Say “Good!”, which can be accompanied by a treat or a quick pat of affection. Think of yourself like a coach, instead of a coddler. Your own energy will directly affect your pup.

Prepare Your Puppy’s I.D.

Lastly, because more pups go missing on July 4th than any other day of the year, we can’t stress enough that before any fireworks displays begin in your area, make sure that even if your puppy remains at home, their tags are all up to date and secure to their collar. 

If they are microchipped, double-check that the listed contact information, address, and veterinarian information are all in order. Intense sounds such as fireworks can instigate the primal flight instinct in many dogs, causing them to do whatever it takes to flee an area and look for safety. In the event that your puppy does run away and try to hide, having these simple IDs will increase the chances of your puppy being found and returned to you!

Remember with most things in life, preparation whenever possible is key! Take the time beforehand to prep your pup and everything you'll need to make 4th of July celebrations as calm and as safe as possible for your pup. Check out our short video for even more helpful tips:

Have more questions about what to do if your puppy experiences anxiety with loud noises like fireworks or how else to desensitize your pup to them? Ask our trainers LIVE every Wednesday at 1 pm PT on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy during our Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel or Podcast.

Become a Puppy Academy VIP (Very Important Puppy) to get our latest puppy training tips direct to your inbox, for free, each week!

Check out these blogs related to puppy training and more!

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How to Calm an Over-Excited Puppy!

Is your puppy happy, anxious, or acting out? Sometimes puppy parents have a hard time deciphering this when their pups have become so excited they can't contain it! Here are some common triggers, dos and don’ts, plus helpful puppy training tips to manage over-excitement in your pup!

The Puppy Academy student: Luna!

Jumping, barking, zoomies, and yipes…is your puppy happy, or are they actually exhibiting over-excitement behaviors? This is often what our puppy parents at The Puppy Academy come to us wondering about!

What some think is a puppy displaying happiness, is actually a state known as over-excitement, where your puppy has become hyper and aroused by something or someone. And over-excitement, which physiologically speaking releases a rush of dopamine in our pups, can become addictive, only propagating compulsive behaviors even further.  

An over-excited puppy might not seem like a big deal to you now, but not managing those over-excited occurrences can lead to future behavioral issues. You might encounter times where you have a lack of control over your puppy when they are in this aroused state, making it difficult or even impossible to get them to listen to you. Or you might find your puppy needed to direct their energy onto other, potentially destructive activities. If left unmanaged as your puppy grows up, they might begin to display negative tendencies like, for example, reacting to other dogs on a leash or barking toward new people. 

The issue is puppy owners don’t always know how to spot over-excitement in their pups. Additionally, they can inadvertently encourage their excitement or even try to correct it without addressing the root cause.

Knowing When Your Puppy is Getting Too Excited

So what are those over-excited behaviors to keep an eye on? If you notice that your puppy is calm one moment, and suddenly experiences a behavior change such as zoomies (uncontrollably running in circles or back and forth), jumping, mouthing and nipping, barking, spinning in circles, etc. These are all signs that your puppy has become over-excited.

And to clarify, over-excitement is different than just high-energy. Some breeds, like herding or hunting dogs, for example, are naturally prone to be more active than other breeds and may display hyperactive behaviors like the ones we mentioned earlier. Generally, though this can be managed by providing those breeds a necessary outlet like regular training or nose work games.

Over-excitement can happen in your puppy due to a sudden surprise by some new stimulus, getting aroused in an activity, or if they are anxiously anticipating something. This leads us to discuss triggers!

The Puppy Academy student: Blue!

Common Over-Excitement Triggers

If you’ve identified that your puppy is dealing with over-excitement behaviors, then the next step in managing your puppy’s excitement is to do a little investigating into what stimulates them, and watching them for changes in their behavior. And you can start off by asking yourself...

“Does my puppy pull on the leash and whine during walks?”

“Does my puppy go into zoomies when I let them go outside in the yard?”

“Does my puppy start barking or jumping out of nowhere when I come home?”

“Does my puppy start circling and jumping up on me around feeding time?”

Continue thinking about all the instances your puppy displayed some over-excited behavior. And also think about what was happening during those activities: your puppy gets surprised by seeing other dogs, squirrels, and people during their walk or in your yard. Your puppy has been home for hours waiting for your return when suddenly you walk through the door. You might notice a trend of surprise and anticipation as two of the prevalent factors in these instances, which can contribute to an arousal build-up in your puppy.

“Does my puppy start to growl and snap during playtime?”

Other triggers can happen during an activity, especially playtime. It’s not uncommon for a puppy that was already engaged in something stimulating like a tug game, for example, to be playing nicely one moment, and then escalate, only to growl and nip the next. During these activities, sometimes our hands and feet, which are like fun moving targets for pups, can entice and arouse your puppy.

Dos and Don’ts to Help Calm Your Puppy

Now that you understand some triggers that can cause over-excitement in your puppy, what happens next? We’ve compiled a few helpful dos and don’ts for you to remember and follow the next time your puppy is experiencing a bout of over-excitement!

 
 

  1. Don’t encourage their excitement. This is one thing that many new puppy parents inadvertently do one way or another. Giving your puppy attention with equally high energy is only serving to hype up your puppy even more. One thing we like to tell our owners at school is “You get what you pet!”, so instead, be as neutral in energy as possible and don’t feed into this excitement. Opt to give your pup some crate or playpen time to help them calm down, or you can choose to redirect that energy into good, by giving them something productive to do and actively working them through it, like practicing some on-leash training routines.

  2. Don’t believe the myth “they will grow out of it”. There is a misconception that with age, puppy energy will disappear. While some pups do calm down as they get older, over-excitement isn’t regular puppy energy and can continue to appear even in adult dogs. The key thing is to understand when and what causes over-excitement in order to address it before it gets out of hand.

  3. Do give your puppy an outlet. One of the best ways to manage over-excitement is to direct your puppy’s energy toward something healthy like an activity or toy. Structured play like Fetch, plus access to mentally stimulating puzzle games and toys, are all super useful tools to help your puppy maintain activeness.

  4. Do reward calm behavior. Allow your pup ample time to completely relax and settle, then you can reward them with attention, some calming rubs, or a special chew toy they can enjoy that encourages them to stay calm. Rewarding them at the right time in the right way will help them learn faster what acceptable behavior is!

  5. Do remain calm at all times! The best way to deal with an over-excitement puppy is to remain calm. This means don’t exhibit how frustrated you might be and always keep a slow and even tone of voice to help your puppy settle down.

Try These Puppy Training Tips

The best advice for puppy parents dealing with an over-excited puppy is to focus on regular basic obedience training to help work on impulse control and engaging your puppy’s drives to keep them more focused on the right things.

At The Puppy Academy, our trainers help pup parents manage their puppy’s more undesirable behaviors with simple training routines. Sit and Stay, or Place or House (this can be your puppy’s crate) and Stay, for example, are a couple of routines we teach owners to encourage their puppies to settle down on command in a specific spot. We find that it’s most effective when you start to work with your puppy in a zero distraction environment like inside your home. Once they nail down the training routine at home, slowly introduce working outside where there may be some more distractions. This is especially useful if your puppy becomes over-excited when they are in the yard or out walking with you as the training will help them to control their impulse to react.

Training alone will help you learn how to manage your puppy’s over-excited states, but you also need to provide your puppy positive stimulus to engage their senses, keep their minds focused on something, and help them expel their energy in productive ways. We’re big fans of introducing training routines into playtime and we also love these ten fun games!

Enroll in a High-Level Training Program!

There’s no way around it: professional training is the best way to learn how to manage your over-excitable pup. In our Online School, we provide a full game plan for puppy parents to follow, specific routines to do to calm your puppy down in the most effective way, and offer 1-on-1 advice from our expert puppy trainers whenever you need it.

End the struggle now and join us in our Online School where we can help you!

Read full reviews and get the insider scoop of The Puppy Academy Online School from the experts at Dogster,  PetKeen and Hepper!

One thing is for certain, managing an over-excited puppy can be challenging but it’s very possible with the right guidance, dedication and consistency. A lapse in your puppy’s training could cause your puppy to backslide into their old behaviors so maintaining a regular training schedule, and providing positive outlets will help ensure their long-term success!

Have more questions about what to do with your over-excited puppy? Ask our trainers LIVE every Wednesday at 1 pm PT on our Instagram @thepuppyacademy during our Ask A Puppy Trainer Show! All replays are posted afterward, and you can catch up on our last ones on our YouTube channel or Podcast.

Become a Puppy Academy VIP (Very Important Puppy) to get our latest puppy training tips direct to your inbox, for free, each week!

Looking for the perfect present for the new puppy parent in your life? (Yes, that’s YOU too!) Document all those special puppyhood moments with our official Puppy Memory Book!:

 
 
 

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