For the first 8 or so years of his life, my senior dog, Otto, was not bothered by fireworks. Honestly, he couldn’t care less, even though our town is the only one in our county that allows people to set off their own fireworks in the city limits. Every night for a week before Independence Day, people all over town are lighting firecrackers and fireworks – and on the big day itself, it seriously sounds like a war is going on. Every big parking lot in town gets PACKED with people who come here from all over the county to play with their fireworks, and watch those being set off by other people. Otto used to sleep through it all.

But around age 9 or 10, Otto started forming a different opinion about all the sounds that fireworks made, from the crackling and sizzling sounds to the pops and booms, and his fear has gotten worse every year. We’ve gone from simple steps like closing the house up tight, turning on fans, putting on loud TV shows, and dosing him with a calming cannabis product for dogs, to making darn sure that I have prescriptions for both Trazodone and Sileo to give him.

Trazodone is a serotonin 2A antagonist and reuptake inhibitor that has been used in human medicine as a prescription therapy for depression, aggression, sleeplessness, and anxiety since the early 1980s. In 2008, a study reported that Trazodone could be used successfully in dogs with good therapeutic benefit and minimal adverse effects. Since then, it has gotten increasingly popular as a prescribed drug to reduce anxiety and increase calm behavior in dogs who are recovering from surgery or injuries. It works particularly well in many dogs in combination with Sileo.

Sileo (dexmedetomidine oromucosal gel) was approved by the FDA in 2016 for specific use as a treatment for noise aversion. It helps calm dogs without any sedating effects, so they can continue to be fully functional.

Many veterinarians still prescribe the tranquilizer Acepromazine for dogs who panic during fireworks displays. Unfortunately, “Ace” (as it is commonly called) works in a very different way than both Trazodone and Sileo. Acepromazine is often referred to as a “chemical straitjacket” because it typically immobilizes the dog but they are still fully aware of everything going on around them, and may, in fact, be terrified but unable to show this. How do we know this? Because some dogs who have been given Acepromazine become more and more sensitized to the sounds each time they have been “Aced” for fireworks.

Last year, Trazodone and Sileo worked great

We moved a few years ago out of town into a more rural area where fireworks are strictly forbidden by law. We can no longer hear any crackling sounds of small fireworks, but there are definitely still idiots within a half mile or so who set off big booming things that sound like cannon fire. Trazodone helps Otto calm down and stop shaking and panting after he hears one of these booms, and helps him go to sleep. But the year before last, even with the Trazodone and everything else we did to try to keep the noise of the peak July 4th fireworks from reaching his ears, he kept us up almost all night, whining, panting, and shaking. He wanted to get in bed with me (which he never does normally) but he wouldn’t stay for more than a minute. His responses were slowed by the Trazodone, but not eliminated.

So last year, at the beginning of June, I called my veterinarian and asked if I could get a prescription for Sileo, which I had heard great things about. Long story short, even starting a month early, it took three weeks to get the drug. Because my vet doesn’t carry it, I had to mail a paper prescription to an online pharmacy, and their stock was backordered…. I finally received the medication three weeks after I saw the vet!

It made all the difference in the world. On the night of the 4^th, I gave Otto one tablet of the Trazodone around 7 p.m.; it seems to take about an hour to start having a visible effect on Otto, making him sleepy. It’s not really dark until about 9 p.m., but the directions for the Sileo say to give an initial dose about 30 to 60 minutes before the concerning noises begin. I gave Otto a dose at about 8 p.m., and by the time all the big firework noises began, the meds had definitely kicked in. He might raise his head and look a little wide-eyed at the loudest booms, but would immediately put his head down and close his eyes again afterward.

A little after 10:00 p.m., he started getting up and pacing a bit when he heard a big boom. You can give additional doses of the Sileo in as little as two to three hours after the first dose. I gave Otto one more dose at 10:30 p.m., and by 11, he was out for the rest of the night, thank goodness! So you can believe me that I started early again this year, getting another prescription for Trazodone and Sileo.

There are many other over-the-counter products that help dogs with the noise of fireworks: ThunderShirts or other products that tightly wrap the dog’s body, which seems to have a calming effect on them; Adaptil, a synthetic pheromone product that seems to have an anxiety-reducing effect on some dogs; and a wide variety of supplements that are supposed to help calm dogs. These products can readily be tested on dogs who have phobias to more common noises or events such as thunderstorms, but when it’s critical to have reliable help on the BIG night, for my dog, I want the proven efficacy of the big prescription drugs.

How about you? If you have a fireworks-phobic dog, are you ready with tools to help him or her cope? What do you use?

I know it’s low-hanging fruit to criticize people for misuse of retractable leashes – but there are an awful lot of first-time dog owners out there who may have been tempted by the highly convenient devices and who don’t know their pitfalls. And because I’m traveling at the moment and just saw a near-disaster out my hotel window involving one of these products, allow me to explain. And then, for those of you who have been around a while, why don’t you tell us your favorite “Never use a retractable leash!” story in the comments?

I heard some hubbub and glanced out the window to see what was up. There was a moving van towing a trailer with a car on it, and an SUV towing a trailer with a small  car on that, and a group of people all getting ready to hit the road for another fun day of (apparently) moving their household in the summer heat. A number of adults were milling around, putting their bags in the various vehicles. The fact that they had dogs held my eye: A pretty Golden Retriever and a tall and young-looking Great Dane who was wearing a harness, both attached to young women who were holding retractable leashes. As I watched, another person came out of the hotel with two metal bowls full of water and offered them to the dogs: drink up, dogs, it’s your last chance for a bit!

I was just about to leave the window when the action of one of the young women held my eye: She put the handle of the leash that was attached to the Great Dane on the fender of the trailer, and walked around the moving van to do something else. Oh no! I said helplessly from my third-floor window, and sure enough, it happened. The dog turned her head, which pulled the handle of the leash off the fender so that it fell toward the dog’s head, spooking her and making her bolt.

HOW MANY TIMES have I seen a dog running in a panic, being “chased” by a rattling plastic retractable leash handle that was bouncing along the ground and bumping the dog’s heels? (Answer: Too many to count.)

Thank dog, the Dane only ran backward a few feet before the other young woman yelled and the dog stopped, shaking with fright. Thank dog again, because this hotel is within a few hundred yards of a busy intersection and a highway.

I get that these devices are great for what we like to call “sniff walks,” where you allow the dog to stop and start and wander at will. But most trainers hate them because they also condition a dog to pull against the pressure of the spring-loaded leash to reach what they want to smell or see. When the holy grail for most dog walkers is walking with a dog who doesn’t pull and drag you around, this is counter-productive.

Also, if the dog suddenly pulls toward something, unless the owner is paying absolute attention, is ready with the button that operates the brake, and the brake actually works (the “bargain” models tend to break down), the dog can bolt into the street (we’ve heard stories of dogs getting hit and killed by a car while on  one of these leashes), bolt toward a frightened person or a person with a fearful dog (starting a dog fight, making a person fall, etc.), or “clothesline” a person who might be jogging, skateboarding, or riding a bike.

The biggest problem is that there is not a good way to reel the dog back in, if he’s already out at the end of the leash. The models that have a cord inside can get wrapped around dog or people legs and can cut deeply; if you grab one, trying to control the dog, the cord can slice your hand open. The ones with a “tape” or flat line inside are safer, but there is still no good way to shorten the leash quickly if the dog is pulling away, only if he comes back toward you or if you can catch quickly up to him.

And, of course, if someone lets go of the handle, an inexperienced dog tends to panic and run blindly with the leash handle chasing it.

Some of you may defend them. I must say I find them to be very helpful for walking smallish dogs out in the areas where my dogs can safely walk off-leash (no other people, no roads nearby, they have great recall). But, in my opinion, they should never be used with a big dog (they don’t give you enough control), and never never never around other dog walkers, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. They are just an accident waiting to happen in crowded environments.

What’s your favorite cautionary tale about these leashes? What circumstances do you think they are perfect for?

Hello! Here’s a reminder to update your contact information on your dog’s tags or collars – and with your dog’s microchip registry. Have you moved? Changed phone numbers? Is there a number that you could add to the registry as a backup?

Two stories from this week have inspired this reminder:

I took a siesta the other day (that sounds cooler than a nap, right?). When I woke up, I looked at my phone and saw six missed calls from one out-of-the-area area code and three missed calls from another number in that same area code. As I mulled over that information, the phone started flashing (I had the ringer off) with an incoming call from one of those numbers. Shoot! What is happening? I answered with trepidation.

A very upset-sounding person responded, “I have your dog here, and it was in a fight, and it may have taken the other dog’s EYE out!”

I jumped out of bed and dashed into the living room. Both of my dogs looked up from their respective couches, where THEY were having a siesta. Whew!

I said, “I live in Oroville, and both of my dogs are with me. But I work with several rescues and I often send dogs that I fostered to their new homes with collars that have my number stitched on them… Does this dog have a collar with my phone number?”

Long story short, that was exactly the case. As the person described the dog, I remembered what dog they were describing. I was able to pull up that dog’s owner’s information and send them HIS number. It turned out that he had left the dog with his parents, the dog had escaped their yard and wandered into some other dog’s yard, and a fight ensued. Thank goodness, as it turned out, the dog who had been injured just had sand in his eye. Both dogs were ok, and the dog who was wearing the collar with my number on it was returned to his owner’s parents.

I suggested to his owner, “Hey, it’s been about 18 months… maybe you should get your dog a collar with YOUR number on it? And if your dog stays with your parents regularly, maybe get him a tag with THEIR number on it, for him to wear when he’s there?”

Backup or alternative contact numbers are critical. I just read an account of a young man who left his service dog in his car at a gas station, with the car and the air conditioning turned on. Someone jumped into the car and drove away, stealing the young man’s car and dog. The dog was turned loose many miles away and was picked up by a shelter; shelter staffers called the number on the dog’s tags, but alas, the owner couldn’t get those calls for a few panicky days, because his cell phone was also stolen.

Fortunately, he finally was able to get the messages and the dog was returned, but what if it had been in an area where the dogs don’t have much time in a shelter before the unthinkable? So scary to contemplate.

MANY of us need to put a tag with a backup number on our dog’s collar. It occurred to me one day as I was driving with my dogs: If we got into an accident and I was killed and my dogs survived, who would the first responders call? Only MY number is on my dogs’ collars! Though I’m not a fan of tags (hence my large collection of collars with my number stitched into them), I’m having some tags made with my husband’s and my son’s number engraved on them, to use when I am driving with my dogs. Just in case!

Dog trainers are most likely to hear from new prospective clients when the clients’ dogs are in the throes of adolescence – and it’s easy to see why. Puppies are adorable, fun, and easy! They get tired quickly and even if they are not taking well to a forced nap in a safely confined area, their unhappy reaction never lasts long. Many puppies are so darn cute and easy to manage, that they never receive formal training beyond the very common “Sit! Sit! SIT!” (and push the puppy’s bottom to the floor)-style of training that people who don’t know better invariably put their puppies through.

Then those sweet, tractable puppies enter adolescence. They don’t get tired so easily. They learn to be more persistent about airing their grievances when confined or restrained. They develop “object permanence,” whereby they totally remember where you put that thing that you took away from them, and they work to get it back, instead of forgetting it exists, like they might have when they were toddlers. They develop opinions and interests: “Oh my dog, I LOVE squirrels! I want to go see that squirrel RIGHT NOW! Squirrels are the BEST!” They need more physical exercise and more mental stimulation and more information about what they ought to be doing with their time; lacking these things, they become inventive about entertaining themselves.

And their owners tend to freak out at these developments – as if they weren’t natural and normal!

At this point, unprepared and irresponsible (or just wildly overwhelmed) owners tend to bring those pups to a shelter, or try to rehome them on Craigslist. More responsible owners will call a trainer – although they might freak out even more when they find out that the “teen dog” training classes have been booked months in advance.

Before I went on a several-year jag of fostering large litters of puppies for my local shelter, I used to foster adolescent dogs for them. My husband and I sold the house where I used to have my office – and where I used to foster all those puppies – and our new house is nowhere near as well set up for fostering puppies; there isn’t a good place (yet) for setting up a safe, foxtail-free play yard or a place where moms and tiny puppies can be comfortable in all weather (cool in our brutally hot summers, warm in our coldish winters). So it looks like I’m back to taking on adolescent foster dogs, rather than raising puppies.

The dog I was calling Kiki was my last foster. She was the typical adolescent shelter owner-surrender: relentlessly active, curious, and smart. She had picked up a few good-manners behaviors while staying in her second adoptive home, but was too pesty to get along with the adult dog there, and got returned again. Besides the things she learned in that home, she didn’t know much; she clearly hadn’t been taught anything by the people in her first home. So, while she spent a good part of any free time she had picking up items that belong to humans and putting them in other places – such as, taking the gardening gloves off the table on the back deck, and placing one next to the fence at the back of our two acres and the other next to my car in the carport – and driving my dog Woody to near-depression with her unending pestering, she was also quite interested in working with people and learned things very quickly. Within weeks, I could take the funny little mixed-breed dog with gigantic ears on off-leash hikes and mountain bike rides, for rides in the car (she rode and waited in the car with impeccable calm), and to friends’ homes. This took a lot of work and attention, however. If we failed to get out for a fair bit of exercise each day, she’d start looking for things to occupy her time – not good things, either. She was a classic “teenager” – but I’m confident she’s going to be a terrific adult.

Kiki got placed in a great home about 8 weeks ago – and then, just two weeks later, we had a death in the family (my brother-in-law). The disruption in my schedule and tasks that I’ve taken on to help my sister have been taking up all my spare time, and I haven’t yet contacted the shelter to see if there is another dog that needs foster care and training. So it’s been about 8 weeks with only my two adult dogs here, and I have to say . . . it’s heaven. They are such an easy pleasure to be around.

Folks, it might take a year or two, but I assure you: If you stick with them, keep up the training and the exercise and the good, solid management, your crazy, impulsive, naughty adolescent dog is going to mature into the best dog ever, and the memory of those endless days of finding holes in the lawn and chewed-up shoes and gloves all over the property will fade, I promise. If I read the articles I wrote about my 13 ½-year-old dog Otto when he was an adolescent, why, I would barely recognize the issues we were dealing with then. And the worrisome behaviors that 5 ½-year-old Woody exhibited during his adolescence (namely, he went through a period of about a year where the well-socialized, formerly friendly, confident puppy turned into a fearful, growly adolescent when meeting strangers), have completely disappeared. As he matured, with a lot of counter-conditioning and desensitization, he outgrew those fears and regained his former happy, goofy confidence.

Personally, I think every puppy should come with a disclaimer: “There is likely to be a period, about six to eight months from now and lasting as long as a year or more, when you will seriously consider giving this puppy away. Please get ready and do your homework now, even when it seems completely unnecessary because this is such a good little puppy, and you will get through the puppy’s “teenage phase” with your relationship, family, and home intact.”

For more information, see these articles on teen dogs (note that the titles of the articles may be different in the print version of the magazine and the online version):

“Teen Angel,” November 2014

“Social Studies,” October 2015

“The Puppy Raising Challenge,” November 2017

“Smells Like Teen Spirit,” March 2018

“Time Flies When You Get a Puppy,” March 2017

“Fear Not!” December 2018

Did you have problems with your dog when she or he was an adolescent? How did you get through that period?