Fireworks and dogs

[JonB]

My parents German Shepherd who is about 10 months old is going absolutely mental at the fireworks, the barking is really really loud and she just goes absolutely beserk. Is there anyway of training her to not go so fricking mental?!
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[dodsi]

If she's barking then it means that she isn't scared, otherwise she would be cowering or wimpering. The reason she is barking is because she thinks the fireworks are a threat to you and she is warning you of the danger as well as trying to ward it off. As a German Shepherd she has really strong instincts to protect "her" human(s) so you need to re-assure her that you don't need protecting against this particular threat.

I'm assuming that it doesn't just start off as barking but rather as a growl. As soon as she starts displaying negative behaviour towards the sounds you need to try to curb it. I would never advise smacking a dog as this can cause long term psychological issues and also open the flood gates to other bad behaviour but there does need to be a physical touch to snap the dog out of that frame of mind where the instincts are taking over. With all my dogs I found a gentle flick on the side or a poke in the chest works best - nothing too hard, just something that will jerk them back into the here and now. Usually a loud one word command works well in conjunction with the physical touch - something like "No!", or something like that. Never use the dog's actual name as the dog can then start to attach a negative connotation to their name.

If you start doing this in a calm and confident way your puppy will soon learn to respond to you to the point where the physcial touch won't be needed. The trick is to never get angry or annoyed as the dogs see this as a sign of weakness (as you are effectively losing control over yourself so why should they even respond to you trying to control them?) so always, always stay patient.

This should sort it out, unless this is just a symptom of some underlying issues.

Let me know how you get on!

(courtesy of my bitch)

[Devils Advocate]