Three "Cheats" to Calms Your Dog during 4th of July

image credit: ericortner extracted from sxc.hu

The 4th of July is coming closer. It's the perfect time for you and your family to enjoy the celebration. Unfortunately, for you who own a dog in your household should be more careful. This is one of the most distressing for a dog. The fireworks can cause lots of stress for our little paw, and it can burn the fantastic fur you always adore. Plus, the holiday activity like traveling can add the stress up.

Some sign of the stress often found during a very busy and loud some holiday such as the Independence Day is restlessness, drooling, panting, hyperactivity, and whimpering. This can makes the holiday that suppose to be a great time to relaxing yourself and your family turn to be a day to give so much attention for your four-legged friend.

Now, if you still want to enjoy the holiday without the burden of helping your dog to cope their stress, you should suppress the stress to the minimal level. This not only useful for you, but also make the dog enjoy this holiday. But how to suppress their anxiety? Well, this is what the article about! So, please read on.

Just a little warning before you continue, the rest of the article is just an emergency "trick" when you desensitize your dog to loud noise before the holiday. The tricks itself won't solve the problem, just rather a temporary shortcut to make the dog feel safer this holiday.

Use Earplug
Believe it or not, earplug can really help your dog to reduce the stress from the loud noise. The dog won't hear the noise too much, and instead of hearing the sudden loud noise, why not give her some calming music from your iPod? If the earplug can't fit your dog ears (some breed has very large hole and some just too small) then use cotton ball and put it on the dog's ear! This will cost you less than a dime, but really works like a charm.

Close the Window and Turn the Radio On
If you plan to spend your holiday in your house but somehow you found out that your house still too noisy for the dog, you can use this trick. Close all the window and curtain, so the dog can't see the flashing light. Sit down in the living room with your dog, and play some calming music loudly.

This may sound crazy, fighting the noise with another noise? But at least the radio sound won't give you (and your dog) too much surprise like firecracker do.

Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy is not for human only; dog can also enjoy the benefit. Especially, dog has much more sensitive nose than human, this makes the effect of the scent even greater in dog.

Best of the Best Way
What's the best way to deal with such anxiety? Well the best way to reduce the anxiety is making her feel safe with the loud noise. This require training, I've put the training tips on "Calm Your Dog in Stormy Day" I know the article is about thunderstorm, but the point of this training is noise desensitization which makes your dog feel less threatened with loud and sudden noise, this training also covering the flashlight desensitization, which is very similar effect with the fireworks.

I can't recommend enough to suggest you to train your dog before the Independence Day; this surely makes the Independence Day less “scary” for the dog. But when you can’t finish it before the holiday, these tricks surely do the job temporarily.