Please help me with some tips for keeping my beagle calm on this bonfire night

Hi everyone,

I am wondering if anyone had problems to keep their pets calm on bonfire night when so many fireworks are used. My dog gets really stressed and it is hard to keep him calm and relaxed. I've tried many tips but I need to know more from people who have experienced this. I have surfed the internet and found some useful tips but any advice from you would be appreciated.

Thanks. x

Hi Sandra, how old is your dog?

What many people do, is firstly, only go for a walk earlier in the day, the day before, and the day after bonfire night. And on the day itself you have to judge whether you think it's work just letting the dog out in the garden or going for a short walk or not (we stayed in on bonfire night). These are not hard and fast rules so base them on whether you expect there to be fireworks let off in your area and what time.

Secondly, on the day itself play some music and keep the tele on - to drown out the noise... that's what I used to do with Rocky and it seems to work for others too.

If your dog is still fairly young you can get CDs that help desensitise the dog to such noises... but you probably won't want to start that now until it's all over, and for next year.

Hi Sandra,

I have a beagle X, and she gets extremely worried at this time of year. We rescued her 12 months ago, so don't know anything of her history. She is now 20 months old.

I have tried all sorts. Last year, I tried rescue remedy to no avail, but I did find that keeping the blinds and curtains closed from late afternoon did help. Because of the state of her last year, I have now booked time off work to be with her until Monday.

When she isn't hiding under the bed (we live in a ground floor apartment), I try to keep her occupied. She is very food motivated, so try to distract her with lots of tasty treats and a nice cheesy kong to take her mind off things.

Good Luck

Good idea re the curtains and blinds and food Deb keeping them occupied certainly does help.

It does mean that she puts on a couple of pounds over the next few days because she will eat, and eat, and eat...., but we can catch up on the exercise once the noise calms down.

The neighbours also think that we go into hiding with the blinds and curtains tightly shut, but it really does help.

The vet did offer medication, but I would rather not go down that route at this stage (she normally sleeps enough).

She just loves the extra ball games and treats.

Hi Azz,

He is just one year old. Yes, I agree the curtains idea sounds good! I try to keep him occupied by playing music or watching TV at loud volume but he is usually very quiet and scared and doesn't like to play much.
I'll defo try your advice.

Thanks guys.

Definitely agree Deb, I'm not keen on medication unless it's absolutely necessary.

The other thing that helps keep their mind of it is cooking something in the oven that is smelly and takes a while - they start dreaming of the food instead

Good luck - I'm sure he'll be fine, and for the next few years perhaps look at the CDs it took Rocky years to get relatively comfortable with the noise because unfortunately we got caught in a street behind firework display which funnily enough only happened because we thought we'd walk Rocky's best friend and owner home because he was scared of fireworks.... and he was a Beagle too

I've never used sedation but gather that it makes them worse because they are still aware of it but can't do anything about it, which is even more frightening!

Mine aren't too bad but when I had one that was, I just used to turn the TV up, draw the curtains, etc., but she still ended up panting behind the TV.

Make sure you don't make a deal of his fear! As you will be just reaffirming there is something to be scared off!

This was a massive turning point for us!

Absolutely Niccie with my old girl I used to adopt a bright and breezy attitude totally ignoring any sounds outside snug behind our closed curtains .

It is difficult these days because fireworks are so much louder than they used to be, some of them are like small bombs going off.