Whilst some of you are settling down for the evening your calm dog snoring on the sofa, others are already have the dreaded feeling. Because you know what’s coming.
The first bang. The trembling. The panting. The hiding. Your dog who was fine last year, or the year before, now absolutely terrified.
And you’re wondering how it happened. How did one bad experience lead to all this fear. Fear of fireworks usually happens fast.
It’s a process of one single event and learning today let’s look at this ,because when we have a dog behaving in a concerning way we should always know why.
Why can our dogs become scared after one big
bang, but not learn that they are safe just as fast?
Teaching your dog something is a very new & different experience once an event has already occurred and you’re picking up the pieces.
Learning usually takes repetition. Practice. Multiple goes at something. You need to hear a word several times before you remember it. Dogs typically need a lot of repetition to learn a new cue.
And sometimes once is enough. One experience. One moment can stay in their memory so deep it never leaves.
It’s not a mistake in their brain It’s a survival tool they use to cope.
The brain has a permanent system for this. When something is important, surprising or scary the memory gets stored differently to protect them.
Scientists have worked out five things that turn a single moment into a permanent memory.
First, It has to stand out. Your dog might see lots of people but they will recall the one who upset them. Something that grabs their attention everything else is just background noise.
Second, it needs to surprise them. The brain spends most of its time predicting what’s coming next.
When something breaks that cycle the brain pays attention. The normal walk that suddenly includes a reactive dog. Surprise tells your dog’s brain something important just happened.
Third, is intensity the experience has to bring a heightened emotion. This is where your dog’s alarm system comes in.
When emotions run high, the memory gets stored as significant. The bigger the emotion, the deeper the emotional attachment creating a big mental note of an event.
Fourth, the experience usually needs to be negative. One bad experience can wipe out many good ones.
And fifth, timing.
The consequence has to follow closely after the trigger. If your dog does something and hurts themselves there’s a connection if they run around and don’t notice they hurt themselves and it hurts later on the link is much weaker for them to pair together. This is why timing makes all the difference when training.
When these five things line up, especially the emotional intensity and the element of surprise you get one experience that shapes behaviour forever.
Understanding what you’re dealing with so you can help your dog the right way.
And it’s not by exposing your dog to firework sounds or take them out to desensitise them this will just lead to more layers of trauma being added to already existing bad memories stored. This type of training only works for dogs that do not have a pre existing experience.
What you need is counter-conditioning. Build new, positive associations with the sounds that can compete with the scary memories. This takes time, patience and working well below your dog’s threshold where they’re not already panicking.
You’re not going to remove the memory. But you can build new pathways. New responses. New emotions associated with bangs and booms.
Prevention is key if you have a puppy ,One good firework experience can create confidence just as easily as one terrible experience creates fear.
This is why firework preparation isn’t just about exposure. It’s about making sure exposure is positive. You don’t always get another chance to make that first impression.
Your dog’s brain is doing what it should be doing memorising the important stuff good and bad it’s our job as pet parents to support them and understand how they see the world and build resilience and install confidence that can help them in difficult situations.