Every year I post an article that lists last-minute things you can do to help your dog who is afraid of fireworks. We are coming up on Independence Day and Canada Day, and that means bangs and booms. Over the years, I have tweaked my list.
But here is an earlier reminder with the most important tip of all.
See your vet about medications (or speak to clinic staff by text or phone if that is an option).
“There are new products on the market, as well as several options that have been around for years. Here is what Dr. Lynn Honeckman, veterinary behavior resident, says about the benefits of medications.
Firecrackers: many dogs’ worst nightmare
Now is the perfect time to add an anti-anxiety medication to your firework-preparation kit. The right medication will help your pet remain calm while not causing significant sedation. It is important to practice trials of medication before the actual holiday so the effect can be properly tested.
There are a variety of medications or combinations that your veterinarian might prescribe. Medications such as Sileo, clonidine, alprazolam, gabapentin, or trazodone are the best to try due to their quick onset of action (typically within an hour) and short duration of effect (4–6 hours).
Medications such as acepromazine should be avoided as they provide sedation without the anti-anxiety effect, and could potentially cause an increase in fear.
Pets who suffer severe fear may need a combination of medications to achieve the appropriate effect, and doses may need to be increased or decreased during the trial phase. Ultimately, there is no reason to allow a pet to suffer from noise phobia. Now is the perfect time to talk with your veterinarian.”
Dr. Lynn Honeckman
I’m writing this year with a new urgency. Although I’ve had a clinically sound phobic dog before, Lewis is my first dog to have clinical thunder and fireworks phobia. We are going through that now, and I hate to think how much more affected his life would be without medications. The meds have a direct positive effect and also help make counterconditioning possible.
Sound phobia is a serious medical condition that usually gets worse. Nothing else comes close to the efficacy of medications. The research on music, pressure garments, and supplements shows weak effects at best. There is no dog crate or ear protection that can prevent your dog from hearing the low-frequency bangs and booms. The best way to help your dog get through the coming holidays in the U.S. and Canada is to contact your vet for help. Call now.
Bonus Tip: There Is New Evidence to Support Ad Hoc Counterconditioning
I plan to publish a whole post on this topic, but I haven’t done it yet. I do recommend ad hoc counterconditioning in my other post, and in recent years there has been evidence of its efficacy.
Ad hoc counterconditioning is counterconditioning without desensitization. It’s the practice of providing appetitive stimuli (usually food or play) after the occurrence of the trigger. In other word: drop great food whenever fireworks go off. But also, feel free to treat for other sudden sounds: door slams, objects dropping on the floor, something popping—any impulse sound.
Dr. Stefanie Riemer has published three papers in the last few years on fireworks fears in dogs. Her bio states:
I am a behavioural biologist and am especially interested in how dogs feel and think. My research interests include emotional expression and social communication in dogs, personality development, noise fears and veterinary fear in dogs as well as the phenomenon of so-called ‘ball junkies’ and possible parallels with behavioural addictions in humans.
Her research is fascinating, and her papers are very readable and available ungated online. Here’s where to check them out.
Her research also supports the use of anxiolytic medication, so we come full circle to Dr. Honeckman’s words: now is a great time to talk to your veterinarian. And if you can, be ready to drop treats—good ones!
Copyright 2019 Eileen Anderson, edited 2024
Related Post
Photo Credits
Two photos of Zani copyright Eileen Anderson.
Firecrackers courtesy of Wikimedia Commons from user Tom Harpel, under this license. I cropped the photo and edited out some background items.
Lewis panting from fear after hearing nearby heavy equipment
Something sad and difficult is happening with Lewis: clinical sound phobia. He is suffering. Three months from the onset and diagnosis, he is doing much better with the help of medications, but we have a long way to go. I want to share, for others who are going through this or might in the future, what the recent months have been like for us.
Sudden Fireworks Phobia
Lewis joined my family in December 2021, and in the next few years we had many thunderstorms and at least eight noisy holidays. I live in a capital city, so we get shows with booming fireworks. Lewis didn’t show fear during these events (with one exception under unusual circumstances). He was happy to accept food after noises, though. Due to long experience with sound reactive dogs, I always deliver good snacks for fireworks and thunderclaps. But if Lewis built up some good associations from that, they weren’t enough.
On January 1, 2025, when the New Year’s fireworks started, Lewis started panting and trembling and seeking comfort. He was in extreme distress. I had no meds for him. We toughed it out with food, when he would take it, and he finally slept, exhausted. I made plans to see the vet.
About a week later, a snowstorm started that lasted a few days, a rarity here. We hadn’t been to the vet yet. Lewis has enjoyed the snow in the past. But at around 7:30 PM the first night, we were out in the yard, and a neighbor close by set off some firecrackers. This video shows the result.
Video shows Lewis standing with his paw raised, trembling, panting, startling to quiet noises, with dilated pupils and extreme tension in his facial muscles.
Lewis not only panicked at the time, but he became afraid to go into the yard, especially at night. During the duration of the snow, he wouldn’t go outside in the evening at all, so sometimes didn’t eliminate for up to 18 hours at a time. And his sound triggers quickly generalized.
I phoned the vet, and we started prescription medications as soon as the streets were clear enough that I could pick them up. I won’t describe the whole meds experience, but many of you know it can take much longer than we wish to get a med or combination that works for a dog. When you get it, it’s priceless, a game changer. But the vet and I are still working on it for Lewis. Writing this in April, he is much, much improved. But he is not his old self.
I also had him checked thoroughly for pain (Lopes Fagundes et al., 2018) by two vets. I’ll keep on top of that. It’s worth noting that he was in the age group where genetic sound phobia typically kicks in, according to Dr. Karen Overall (2013, p. 257).
We kept having bad luck. In February, the city water department excavated the next-door neighbor’s driveway. First, a jackhammer. Then an excavator scraping up pavement and dumping it, booming, into a truck. And of course the truck made backup beeping noises. A new level of trauma unlocked for Lewis. The work started every morning at 8 AM and lasted all day. This went on for four days one week, then two more the next week. Lewis would rarely go outside and was hyper-vigilant when he did so. Indoors got poisoned, too, as he associated the scary noises with being at home. When inside, he’d ask to be taken somewhere by car. He’d stand next to the cabinet where I keep his leash and harness or try to get into the garage when I went out. Or he would simply ask repeatedly to go in another room if doors were closed. I let him, but of course it didn’t help, since there’s no escaping sounds of that amplitude and frequency.
There was a sweet spot around dusk after the workers left and before the still-scary nighttime. Sometimes he’d do his only eliminating for the whole day during that time. Sometimes I had to take him to another neighborhood to get him to go.
Lewis standing by the cabinet where I keep his leash, asking to leave the house
Thunderstorms, Too
Lewis was also terrified the next time we had a thunderstorm, and from then on. In my sound webinars, I talk from an acoustic point of view about the difficulty/impossibility of preventing dogs from hearing thunder. This has been brought home to me anew: how desperate we get, as owners, for something, anything, to block that sound. But in almost all cases, you just can’t. When a thunderclap can shake your house, it’s ludicrous to think that an insulated doghouse, a closet, or even earmuffs can make that sound inaudible. This is why owners of sound phobic and other fearful dogs are so easily exploited by companies that sell products with false promises. When we want to relieve our suffering friends; we will try anything.
I also talk about the problems with satiation when using food for ad hoc counterconditioning. This is a big problem for us. In Arkansas, we have storms that go on for hours. We recently had such a day. We knew it was coming. I had about two cups of chicken ready in bite-sized pieces. The first thunder came at 5:30 PM. I had medicated Lewis ahead of time, but he was still reacting. Not as severely as in the video above, but still upset and frightened. I gave him a piece of chicken for every thunderclap for more than 60 minutes, but after that, I had to slow down. It was just too much food.
If you have studied Pavlovian conditioning, you know that it’s important to establish a 1:1 association between the conditioned stimulus (in this case, thunder) and the unconditioned stimulus (food). The clearer the association, the better the transfer of the response you get to the originally-scary thing. But you can’t do it cleanly with thunder. There are some horrible challenges related to satiation. First, which thunderclaps “count”? You start off treating for each one, as we know we should do. Then you realize that if you continue to do that, and include the quieter ones, you will be feeding nonstop. So you try to make some acoustic threshold in your mind’s ear, and just treat for “the loud ones.” But this breaks the pairing. And is there really some magic line for the dog between scary and “OK, I’m not quite panicking” thunderclaps? Even if there is, how do we find it?
The second problem is the duration itself. I mentioned in my example that the thunder started at 5:30 PM. As of 1:30 AM the next morning, eight hours later, there hadn’t been a period of even 10 minutes when there wasn’t audible thunder. Then we had two more days of thunderstorms.
It could help if I could start to ask for a behavior and give him something to do instead of waiting for inconsistently paired food. After hours and days of storms, I was giving “consolation chicken,” since all hope of a consistent pairing was down the drain. But moving to a behavior will have to happen later; he’s too upset.
Lewis waiting by a door trying to escape the thunder (it wouldn’t work, but I let him through anyway)
Training and Husbandry Got More Difficult
I mentioned that Lewis’ triggers generalized fast. A door slam, a twig falling on the roof, a human getting the hiccups (really!), the unexpected clink of some metal pieces in a box, the excavation, cars revving—all scare him badly. There are still few days without triggers. In the video above, you can see how sensitized he is; he twitches at least twice in response to background noises.
Lewis is already a challenge with handling and husbandry. I still trim his nails by giving him frozen peanut butter on a LickiMat and clipping as fast as I can. That’s where we are with nail trims after three years, even though I’ve taught cooperative foot handling to five other dogs. Last fall, Marge Rogers started coaching me on getting him relaxed and being handled. That was coming along nicely until the sound phobia kicked in.
The handling practice is on hiatus since he’s too sensitive for much training. But he also gets upset if I do his nails the old way, whereas before, he didn’t care for the handling but didn’t seem to mind the actual clipping.
A similar thing happened with Clara, even though she was such an easier dog than Lewis. She was relaxing through Dremeling at three years old, but then she got Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. She was in pain. I made the mistake of trimming her nails during this period and it was very hard on her. Although she was always cooperative, we never got our relaxed nail trimming back again, for her whole life.
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Each dog teaches me new things. I wish, for Lewis’ sake, he didn’t have to be teaching me about this.
Lewis’ condition is like Zani’s in that he is convinced that if he could leave the house (out the front, not the back), he could escape the triggers. I wish it were so! And both have/had a more severe response to their trigger sounds than Summer, who was afraid of thunder, but probably not phobic. Ad hoc counterconditioning helped Summer immensely. After Zani was stabilized on meds, structured desensitization and counterconditioning helped her to an amazing recovery. But her triggers had acoustic aspects that made them much more amenable to successful DS/CC.
Lewis has the toughest situation, with clinical phobia to thunder and fireworks that quickly generalized to many other sudden sounds and even objects associated with them. For instance, because one time some metal pieces settled in a box on the coffee table and made a “clink,” we have to be careful about cardboard boxes now.
Medications (ongoing and situational) and ad hoc counterconditioning have both helped. Lewis also profits from physical and verbal comfort. His first response when a sound scares him is to creep over to me or my partner. He often buries his head between my knees. He has access to places to hide, but isn’t interested. After his initial response, he wants to stay in sight of his humans, but not usually cuddly close. I can tell how upset he is by observing which location he chooses in the den.
I use sound masking to manage the acoustic environment. It can make such a big difference, and especially helped during the neighborhood excavation. Because of that, I figured out a trick for masking that may help some of you. I’ll publish that in a separate post.
Here’s an antidote to all the sad photos. We are still managing to have some fun during this adjustment and recovery period. I will keep you posted.
Related Posts and Resources
References
Lopes Fagundes, A. L., Hewison, L., McPeake, K. J., Zulch, H., & Mills, D. S. (2018). Noise sensitivities in dogs: an exploration of signs in dogs with and without musculoskeletal pain using qualitative content analysis. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 5, 17.
Overall, K. (2013). Manual of Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Dogs and Cats. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Is your dog scared of fireworks? Don’t wait until the holiday hits. Even with just a couple days’ lead time, you can make a plan and take action now to help your dog be less afraid of the unpredictable scary sounds of fireworks, firecrackers, whistles, and even guns.
Get Ready
Here are some things you can do starting today or tomorrow.
1.Check into medications. If your dog gets very anxious about noises and you have never talked to your vet about it, do so now. He or she may be able to prescribe something to help. And if you can’t get in before the holiday, do your best with some of the other ideas here to get through it and call your vet as soon as you can. This is a long-term problem. Sound phobias tend to get worse and are not something to be taken lightly.
2. Countercondition to noises. Get some great treats and start carrying them around. Whenever there is any kind of sudden or startling noise, including stray bangs and booms as people test their noisemakers, rain treats down on your dog. Use those special treats only for noises; don’t pass them out for nice behavior (use something else for that!), and don’t ask for any particular behavior from your dog when the noise occurs. Just give the special treats.
You may wonder why I am not recommending buying an app, CD, or YouTube video with fireworks sounds to “practice” with. Performing desensitization/counterconditioning with sounds is tricky. People who haven’t done DS/CC before run a real risk of scaring their dogs further instead of helping them. This is why I am suggesting this method, which uses environmental noises that are happening anyway. It’s called ad hoc counterconditioning and there isevidence from studies that it is effective, including this study that is specific to fireworks. Save the formal training for after the holiday, when you can keep your dog safe from accidental exposures to the sound.
3. Create a safe place. Make (or adapt) a safe place for your dog. They may even choose their own! Refrain from trying to get them to come out or change locations, as long as it is safe. Keep in mind that the flashes of light that come with big fireworks displays can be scary too, so consider a method to temporarily darken any windows nearby. Also, please know that acoustic foam and even sound blankets don’t do a thing for booms. The big fireworks sounds can’t be “soundproofed” against except with materials that are much too big and heavy to use inside most houses and are not do-it-yourself friendly. Get the best protection you can in a basement or your most internal room. Despite the marketing claims, dog crates with walls a few inches thick can’t dampen low-frequency sounds to an effective degree, either. The walls of your house are probably five to ten inches thick and include insulation, but you can still hear thunder inside your house, right? But if a crate is your dog’s safe place, that’s great. And a blanket over it can muffle echos and create a cozy feeling for humans and perhaps dogs. Here are some examples of safe places for dogs.
4. Play sound or music. Experiment with sound masking to find out what is most helpful for your situation. Try some kind of recorded white or brown noise, natural noise, a fan, or music to mask the pops and booms. (Even a noisy food toy can be helpful.) This approach is evidence-based and is called sound masking.
And here’s a tip: the lower the frequencies included in the masking or music, the better it can hide those low-pitched booms (Kinsler et al., 1999, p.318–320; Gelfand, 2017, p. 187). So if your dogs are already habituated to pounding rock music, metal, or something else with a lot of bass or percussion, play it! And play it on your best sound system to include those low frequencies. It can mask some of the scary noises coming from outside your house more effectively. Before anyone mentions it: that’s right, heavy metal has not ranked well in the dogs and music studies, tending to make shelter dogs more agitated (Kogan et al., 2012). That’s not surprising. But if you play it already and your dogs are fine with it, they may be habituated. In that case, metal could be the very thing for you and your dog.
Taiko drumming is great if your dogs are accustomed to it. You can buy a few songs and loop them or find some on YouTube. But be absolutely certain that the music itself doesn’t scare your dogs first. If they are already sensitive to booms, it’s a strong possibility.
Household appliances can help. Most fans hit fairly low frequencies and can be helpful. You can run the dryer (no heat) with a pair of sports shoes in it for some booms that will probably be familiar and not scary. You’ll need to find the line of best fit for your dogs. And you can use several of these at once, again, as long as it doesn’t scare your dog.
Review studies indicate that music has only mild (or no) positive effects on dogs (Lindig et al., 2020). Also, all studies so far have been done in shelters. clinics, and labs, not in homes, where there are competing activities and reinforcers. Review studies have specifically indicated that there is no benefit to the “music arranged for pets” products. So the evidence supports choosing music for masking qualities, not for any claimed intrinsic relaxing qualities.
5.Practice going out. Make a plan for taking your dog out to potty. Do you know when the noise is usually at its worst and can you work around that? Are your fences and/or leash and harness secure? If your dog is not used to being on-leash for potty time, start practicing now, including getting the harness on. Dogs who are usually sedate may panic and run off on noisy holidays. Don’t let that happen. Keep your gates locked, your dogs’ ID tags on, and put some redundancy into your safety system.
6. Comfort your dog if that helps. LOSE that idea that there’s something wrong with comforting your dog, if that’s what your dog wants. Helping a dog through a tough time is not “coddling.” Assess what is most helpful to your dog: a cuddle, food or a fun game after every scary noise, some lap time, sweet talk, being in their crate with a food toy, or hiding by themselves in a secluded place. Then help them do it. If they want to hide, let them.
The best part of noisy holidays for Summer was spray cheese!Lewis likes to be close to me when weird noises are heppening
Gelfand, S. A. (2017). Hearing: An introduction to psychological and physiological acoustics. CRC Press.
Kinsler, L. E., Frey, A. R., Coppens, A. B., & Sanders, J. V. (2000). Fundamentals of acoustics. John Wiley & Sons.
Kogan, L. R., Schoenfeld-Tacher, R., & Simon, A. A. (2012). Behavioral effects of auditory stimulation on kenneled dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 7(5), 268-275.
Lindig, A. M., McGreevy, P. D., & Crean, A. J. (2020). Musical dogs: A review of the influence of auditory enrichment on canine health and behavior. Animals, 10(1), 127.
Riemer, S. (2020). Effectiveness of treatments for firework fears in dogs. Journal of veterinary behavior, 37, 61-70.
If your dog is afraid of noises, please take that seriously. Sound reactivity can be debilitating, and the clinical, medical condition of sound phobia can be devastating. Neither is commonly “solved” by purchasing a product. Evidence supports the use of counterconditioning, relaxation training, and behavioral medications (Riemer, 2020).
The Pet Shell Pet House
I do not own a Pet Shell. I am reviewing the claims of their marketing materials compared to the acoustic report they published.
A new product for dogs and cats, the “Pet Shell,” has hit the market. It is a Kickstarter project and promoted as a noise-reducing pet house that “reduces sounds by more than 50%,” which is a problematic statement. The marketing materials further imply that the interior of the Pet Shell is “silent,” with multiple statements such as, “The unbeatable combination of darkness and silence (emphasis theirs) creates a calming space for your pet, similar to a den.” The silence claim is also problematic, and untrue per their own test results.
The noises they feature in a promotional video are a thunderclap, a siren, a jackhammer, a vacuum, traffic, a beeping alarm clock, and fireworks. Similarly, the sounds listed on the “Understanding Dogs’ Sensitivity” section of their Kickstarter site are thunderstorms, fireworks and gunshots, loud vehicles, sirens and alarms, construction and industrial noises, and household noises. Note how many of these include low-frequency sounds.
This product is being aggressively marketed as a solution for dogs who fear thunder and fireworks. However, Pet Shell’s own published acoustical testing report, impeccably performed at the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, reveals that the low frequencies of thunder and fireworks are where the Pet Shell is least effective at preventing the transmission of sound.
The acoustic testing of the Pet shell was performed by a physicist with excellent credentials. The report is exemplary, with methods explained well and with sufficient detail and transparency that someone with the right equipment could replicate the testing. I am glad that Pet Shell engaged an expert who knows testing procedures and the applicable standards to do this work.
The results are well supported in the report itself, and they are in keeping with general knowledge about sound entering enclosures. I will assume the accuracy of the report findings through this blog post.
The Problematic Marketing Claims
The marketing materials contain many statements and claims that are refuted by Pet Shell’s own test results. Here are the highlights.
Problematic Claim:The Pet Shell reduces sounds by more than 50%. The average sound reduction across the frequency bands over a range of 1–20,000 Hz was found to be 13 decibels. Since a 10-decibel reduction correlates with a decrease of the perceived sound by half (for humans), this “more than 50%” reduction can be defended. However, that average gives an incomplete picture of what is happening inside the Pet Shell. The effectiveness of sound reduction by passive means (barriers, absorption) depends on frequency. It is much easier to prevent the transmission of high-frequency sound. If you check the breakdown by frequency on the sound testing report, you see that the low frequencies from 100 to 250 Hz show much less reduction in the Pet Shell. The attenuation is 2.6 dB at 100 Hz, 4.2 dB at 125 Hz, 6.6 dB at 160 Hz, 5.3 dB at 200 Hz, and 3.4 dB at 250 Hz. These frequencies correlate with the frequencies of thunder and large fireworks, and they are being reduced much less than the average.
Please view the report to see this dramatic decline in effectiveness at low frequencies depicted graphically on page 4.
This poor performance is not at all surprising; it’s common to all barrier-based solutions. You can see a similar lowered effectiveness in the sound spectrum report for Rex Specs Ear Pro, ear protection for dogs. Passive sound barriers are not effective at preventing the transmission of low frequencies; the waves are too massive.
The Pet Shell can claim a 13-decibel reduction overall because the sound attenuation is much more effective at higher frequencies. But think what that means. An animal in the interior of the Pet Shell is in a soundscape with a predominance of low frequencies.
Problematic Claim: “…minimizing intense sounds – especially high-pitched ones that trigger stress…” This statement correctly identifies that the Pet Shell is more effective at decreasing higher-frequency sounds than lower-frequency sounds, as is true of any passive sound barrier. But why are they focusing on “high-pitched sounds that trigger stress” when most of the sounds they list on their sites and include in their promotional video are low frequency? Fireworks and thunder are featured over and over. Of the sounds I listed from their materials above, only the siren, the alarm clock, and some household noises stand out as higher frequency. And while there are plenty of dogs who fear high-frequency sounds (I had one), a recent study showed that thunder was the most common fear (Grigg et al., 2021, p. 4).
Problematic Claim: The usual buzzwords for such products like “calming, safe, silent, secure,” and implications of relaxation and decreasing anxiety. I’m sure some animals enjoy the privacy, the ability to hide in a cozy place, and the moderate sound reduction at higher frequencies. But dogs inside the Pet Shell will still hear the fireworks and thunderstorms perfectly well.
Images Depicting Fireworks and Thunder Sounds by Frequency
The following images show that the weakest performance of the Pet Shell (per their report) correlates with the loudest frequencies of fireworks and thunder.
I analyzed sound recordings of fireworks and thunder in the software Audacity, and the images below show the sound spectrum, in other words, how loud the sound is at different frequencies. In the images, the horizontal (x) axis is frequency, and the vertical (y) axis is decibels. The higher something is on the y axis, the louder it is. I marked with a black rectangle the frequency area where the Pet Shell is least effective per the numbers in their report: the range from100 to 250 Hz. It correlates with the loudest frequencies of both the fireworks and thunder.
Fireworks
Thunder
The red line in each image shows the peak, the area of maximum amplitude (roughly, volume). In both cases, it is within the area where the Pet Shell performs the worst.
See my technical addendum at the bottom if you are curious why the decibels on the y axis are negative.
I purchased the sample sounds of fireworks and thunderclaps from Pond5.com. You can listen to lower-quality previews (turn down your volume first!) of the sounds I used here (fireworks) and here (thunder). I chose recordings by ear that had plenty of low frequencies. Here are sources for information about the typical low frequencies of fireworks (Tanaka et al., 2016) and thunder (Holmes et al., 1971).
Can a Little Reduction Help My Dog?
Are you thinking, “Well, even a tiny bit of reduction in the sound of thunder is probably worth it”? If so, ask yourself whether your dog reacts only to the loudest thunderclaps. When they hear thunder that doesn’t shake the house, are they fine? In that case, maybe a little reduction could help (although they’ll still feel the house shake inside the Pet Shell). Or have they generalized to fearing most or all thunder noise? In that case, a small reduction in decibels is immaterial. Dogs often get sensitized to sounds that scare them. When this happens, the sound can scare them at lower intensities than it did originally. In these cases, a small reduction in the sound intensity would not make a difference.
A “before” photo of clinically sound phobic Zani, who didn’t need a hiding place from sounds for her last five years because we consulted a veterinary behaviorist
Conclusion
The Pet Shell is expensive and doesn’t cure sound fear. It doesn’t block low-frequency sound. It’s not silent inside. Providing a hiding place is a kindness, but don’t we want more than that for our dogs—to address the fear itself?
The harm of the Pet Shell comes from the marketing claims, including that it can protect dogs significantly from thunder and fireworks. Their own report says that it can’t. People may purchase this product instead of pursuing evidence-based approaches to help their pet’s sound sensitivity.
I had an exchange with a representative of Pet Shell on social media after I made a brief critique. They were polite and open to suggestions. I asked them to put a notice on their website about how serious the fear of sounds can be in dogs, and to encourage people to seek professional help for their dogs for this problem.
References
Grigg, E. K., Chou, J., Parker, E., Gatesy-Davis, A., Clarkson, S. T., & Hart, L. A. (2021). Stress-related behaviors in companion dogs exposed to common household noises, and owners’ interpretations of their dogs’ behaviors. Frontiers in veterinary science, 8, 760845.
Holmes, C. R., Brook, M., Krehbiel, P., & McCrory, R. (1971). On the power spectrum and mechanism of thunder. Journal of Geophysical Research, 76(9), 2106-2115.
Riemer, S. (2020). Effectiveness of treatments for firework fears in dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 37, 61-70.
Tanaka, T., Inaba, R., & Aoyama, A. (2016). Noise and low-frequency sound levels due to aerial fireworks and prediction of the occupational exposure of pyrotechnicians to noise. Journal of occupational health, 58(6), 593-601.
Technical Addendum: Those Negative Decibels and dB(A)
The decibels are negative in my images because they are being measured inside a computer and not the real world. Decibels need a reference point, and there are lots of different ones used. The maximum decibels that the computer can record (so-called “full-scale”) is set at a reference point of zero. So the closer the negative number is to zero, and the higher it is physically on the image, the louder the sound is at that frequency.
The designation dB(A) in the Pet Shell report refers to a decibel scale that is weighted, taking into account the characteristics of human hearing. This can introduce error, but it’s unavoidable at this time. We don’t have a scale weighted for dogs (which is acknowledged in the report).
