Pets and fireworks

It's coming up to the Fourth Of July here, which is always celebrated in our neighborhood with fireworks. It's hard to know when and where they will be going off, as people purchase their own and set them off as they see fit.

My dog absolutely can't stand fireworks, they make him super anxious and frightened. Despite having a fenced in yard, we always elect to keep him indoors on the Fourth, because the last thing we want is having our dog stressed and worried about where all the noises are coming from.

I've read that the Fourth of July also has the highest proportion of missing dogs, along with New Years, because of them getting frightened of the fireworks and running away.

Is your pet afraid of fireworks? How do you manage it on occasions where you know fireworks will be going off?

Well, I'm Canadian, so we don't celebrate the fourth of July here, but we do have Canada Day on the first! We've always lived outside of the city since we got our dog, but we very recently moved back into the city less than a month ago. There is always some sort of Canada Day firework event going on, and we've been fortunate up to this point because we couldn't see or hear them from where we lived. Haru, my dog, is very jitterish and gets frightened easily by loud noises (even small things like a plate dropping make him scurry away). I'm a little bit worried about how he'll react come the first of next month - which I just realized is tomorrow, my goodness - to be honest. I don't expect he'll get scared to a point that we'd need to do any sort of sedation (I've seen this method recommended for dogs that are especially anxious of fireworks) but I expect I'll have to sit with him inside and hold onto him to be sure he doesn't freak out. The basement in our house is very quiet so I'm hoping that if worse comes to worse just taking him down there might be enough to calm his nerves.

As for the running away - unless you already KNOW that your pet will do fine with the fireworks based on past experiences, I don't think it is ever a good idea to bring a pet along to watch fireworks with you. Animals need a safe, familiar place to retreat to, and if you go out somewhere unusual to the animal they are obviously more likely to run away. If you do take them out though, I'd say to always make sure the pet has an ID tag on no matter what.

One of our dogs is just a tiny bit frightened by them but she is an inside only dog so she can be guarded from it a little.
We are going to be out of town for the weekend but my sister in law will be house sitting and pet sitting for us so it shouldn't be too bad on her this year.