July is Pet Safety Month at BlogPaws, and I’m going to write a series on Summer Pet Safety throughout the month. With the 4th of July tomorrow, it seems like the logical place to start! I found a couple of great infographics to share with safety tips for the 4th, and then I’ll tell you our plans to keep our pets safe this holiday weekend.
The statistics for lost pets greatly increase for the 4th, so it’s important to keep your pets secured over the holiday weekend. They also need to be kept safe from ingesting foods that are bad for them, alcohol, and even decorations that are within their reach (Luke eats anything and everything).
Our neighbors like to set off fireworks, and Cricket hates them. We are going to a concert tonight, and we are really hoping our neighbors won’t be starting their festivities until tomorrow night. However, since they already set some off last weekend, we can’t count on that. Our plan is to leave the dogs in our finished basement with the air conditioner on to keep them cool as well as to drown out sounds from outdoors. Cricket’s reaction to fireworks isn’t extreme….she mostly gets nervous and paces; she doesn’t completely freak out or anything. We don’t feel medication is in order for her, and we have tried the Anxiety Wrap in other situations with her with limited results.
Our late golden retriever Moses was far more afraid of thunderstorms and we did try a Thundershirt with him which helped. It didn’t work as well for Sheba. Just because our current dogs don’t respond well to these types of aids doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it with your dog. They all react differently, and it’s best to try them ahead of time to get them accustomed to it.
We’ll be home the rest of the long weekend, and plan to spend each evening in the basement with the A/C on, watching the Nascar races. We’ll stay up later than usual to get through the fireworks times (our neighbors typically set them off up until 11pm and sometimes midnight). Our dogs will probably be more disturbed by me yelling at the TV during the race, than by fireworks (I don’t really do that a lot)! The dogs will go out for their last pee break before dusk. Of course, as always, they have their collars and ID’s on, and Luke is microchipped.
We don’t have any cookouts planned, but if you are planning one and want to read about how best to keep your dogs safe during a 4th of July get together, our friends over at Tales ‘n Tails wrote a great post on that subject….click here to read.
With all that in mind, we hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday weekend. I want to leave you with some photos of my simple 4th of July decorations in my flower garden, and a holiday wish from the dogs.
Today we’re joining the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop. Many thanks to our hosts 2 Brown Dawgs Blog (they also have a great post on fireworks safety today) and Heart Like a Dog. Please visit them and others through the links below!
What a great post and thank you for joining the blog hop!!
Neither one of my dogs has ever really freaked out about fireworks, but we are generally home with them. On occasion if there is a really loud one, Sampson would run outside and bark at it. Although, he no longer has free access to that at the moment.
BUT after his freakout over the smoke detector last month, I was a bit concerned this year. The 4th was rainy so nothing went on but the 5th was beautiful and I was at a concert while Hubby was at our daughter’s house watching a movie.
We decided to shut the windows and leave the air conditioning and the TV on and were very lucky that none of our close neighbors got out of control. You can never be too careful.
You’re right, because you just never know when something might change and all of the sudden they’re bothered about it.
We also heard a lot on the 5th but we were watching TV and it seemed to drown them out enough that Cricket wasn’t bothered. I was also afraid Luke would bark at them, since he tends to bark at noises, but that never happened either. They all slept through everything. There were a few on the afternoon of the 6th when we were all outside, and they didn’t react to those either…yay!
Great information. We have been having fireworks going off all day…blah. I actually think Freighter and Thunder are starting to be desensitized to them. The weather is so nice that we opened the windows until later and on the first bang (about 1 pm) Freighter jumped in my lap…all 85 pounds of him…lol. Hope you are having a Happy 4th and thanks so much for joining the hop!
So far our weekend has been peaceful, because it’s been raining! Oh, Moses always wanted to climb on our laps too, and he was around 75 lbs…that was bad enough! Hope things quiet down for you and you have a great weekend.
Midnight. That is when it quieted down! Thunder and Storm did very well. Freighter was not a fan, but maybe as he gets older he will decide it is no big deal. 🙂
At least 2 out of 3 did well, and hopefully Freighter will get over it more when he’s older, as you said. There were lots of fireworks here last night, but luckily they ended before 11 when we wanted to go to bed! We were downstairs with the TV on, and we could still hear them, but the dogs, even Cricket, didn’t pay any attention, so that was great!
Happy 4th! Hope Cricket makes it through okay. Luckily there aren’t too many fireworks around here and neither Jack or Maggie seem phased by them.
Thank you! So far Luke isn’t showing any signs of being afraid of noises, so that’s a good thing. I’ve been afraid he’d feed off his sisters’ anxiety (they used to feed off Moses’, that’s why they’re some better now with storms), but so far he hasn’t.
Enjoy your holiday weekend!
Happy Independence Day.
Happy 4th to you as well!
Happy 4th of July! Hope you all have a great weekend!
Thank you, and same to you and your family!
Those really were good tips and those boomies are sure scary. Happy Independence Day everyone!!!
Our cats don’t seem to be too bothered by the noise. Conrad is half deaf now anyway, and for a cat who used to be scared of everything, he’s pretty fearless now! Thank you, Brian, and the same to you and your family!
Great infographics, beautiful garden. Hope the pooches do fine this holiday season. Have a great weekend.
Thank you!! Hope you have a great holiday weekend to.
Great reminders. Have a happy and SAFE 4th of July. Golden Woofs
Thank you, and you too, Sugar!
This time, Mom Kim here – I love that infographic for the 4th (I love both of them actually). I am trying to post something on my FB page related to safety for pets for a few days and have run out and can’t find anymore.
Would you mind if I share it on FB and on my blog tomorrow?
I love all your pretty pics – all the flowers and greenery you have – is that at your place? It is rather dullsville around our house. Anymore I almost hate the 4th – this year sis & me are going to cousin’s cook-out and fireworks but it may be the last time. I’m not into that like I was when I was younger and not as pet-oriented as I am now.
Ok – bak to work now 🙁 will be so glad when this workday is over – have a four day weekend coming up this weekend – YEAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Hi Kim
Yes please feel free to use!! I’ll send you a quick email too just in case you don’t see this.
Yes, the photos are from our house, gardening is one of my hobbies but those gardens have actually gotten out of control with the weeds!
If we do any 4th cookouts, it’s just a small one with family only….I’d rather be home with my pets too! Have a great weekend!
Have a great Fourth of July weekend. Hope your fireworks situation isn’t too bad. They start the beginning of June around here, but luckily only Katie is bothered by it and she has her own plan.
So far, so good, with the rain, but I imagine tomorrow things will get noisier!
Does Katie just find a place to go hide out?
You guys look ready! I’m still debating on what we are going to do. We might go to the lake but I don’t know yet, because it does cost money and we just went to the waterpark Tuesday. We also like to do fireworks, but Shiner isn’t too bad with them. She tries to attack them if I let her out… which I don’t anymore.
I hope you have a good weekend, whatever you decided to do. My sister’s dog went after their fireworks once at their house (this was years ago)….so he had to be put inside from then on too! It shocked everyone when he did that!
Those are all super good tips!! thanks for sharing a very impawtant post! I hope you guys have a great 4th of July! Your decorations are just gorgeous too! And your garden puts mine to shame! HAHA!!!!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Thanks, Jenna! My garden is deceiving though….there’s a lot more weeds in there than you can tell….LOL.
We’re getting rained out so far, but tomorrow is supposed to be better.
Great tips for reducing the stress of fireworks. We are trying our new ThunderShirt on Bentley. We have two friewroks stands close to us and they shoot off stuff every night all week long. Grrrr! Our family celebrates the Fourth on the 5th so we will be here with him. I sure hope that it helps. Have a great time at the concert.
Thanks, we had a fun time at the concert, and all seemed good with the dogs when we got home! We’ve had rain since last evening so haven’t heard any fireworks yet. I’ll be curious to learn how the thundershirt works for Bentley.
Have a great weekend!
Love your patriotic garden and safety reminders.
Have a dog friendly 4th from The Poodle (and dog) blog
Thank you, and same to you, Jan!