Fireworks on walks

[SaddlePsych'D]

Well this was a bit frustrating...got all our kit on for an evening walk. Stepped out the door and almost immediately a random firework went off nearby. It's not even dark for goodness sake! She's fairly unbothered by them when we're at home indoors, but poor Ivy was quite scared and so we came straight home. Now I don't know whether to leave it for this eve and set up some indoor sniffari or whether to try again to go for the walk.

Just wanting to check in really to see if my instinct was right to come home or if I should have tried to calm her and see if we could move on. Ivy is not an aggressive puller on the lead (rarely pulls at all) but she was up on her hind legs to pull for home so I think we were past the point of threshold. I got the lead clipped on both ends as soon as it went off so had a bit of extra security for her not to slip her harness and bolt (though we were just a couple of doors from home and she went straight for home anyway).

 

[Roxylola]

She's already been twitchy, you're absolutely right to abandon your walk

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

I really hope it doesn't set us back again. She's been doing so well lately and we have a couple of established quiet walks we can do from home. Will see how she is tomorrow and take extra special treats.

Sniffari also abandoned as she gave up looking and randomly peed on the carpet. Very not like her. I decided just give her the kong and each of us go chill out instead!

 

[Roxylola]

I'd leave evening walks for now. She'll be wary for a while now I think so no point forcing an issue

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

Thankfully I'm off work this week so we can do a nice longer walk in the afternoons or see if we can book at a secure field for her to have a good run.

I'm trying to avoid dusk anyway, not that it will be avoided much longer. Mostly because she goes into hunter mode and spends the whole time on her toes. We come back more energetic than we left which isn't really the idea.

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

It seems no harm done. We've done a few daytime walks and then a very quick one round the block before it got dark yesterday eve. Lots of extra treats and sticking to our usual quieter streets. In fact the most reluctant she was to go out was today because it's raining and she is now sleeping off the trauma of this injustice!

The rain was also a strong negative reinforcement for her to try going in our local cafe. I had planned to wait outside while OH went in to get coffee. The second a 'scary' man walked out, Ivy was straight in. She was also incredibly keen to go in the bakery. Unsurprising, she adores carbs!

 

[SAujla]

Its become a new thing for Indian weddings to set off fireworks at the end of the wedding day. I don't know where this started or why but its been the case around me for the last few years. Its unacceptable but it might explain the randomness, not that its going to be of any help

 

[CorvusCorax]

Fireworks have been going off here for weeks, including during daylight all weekend, it's a Halloween thing round here.

Because I need my dogs to be neutral with a blank firing pistol it's something I do try really hard to proof but genetics has a huge input as well.
When I was going through a period of her reacting to the gun (she wasn't scared - she thought it was the whip, which is used to stimulate dog in bitework and started barking) I just ignored it and kept walking, with leash pressure so she had to follow me, then when she came back into nice attention I gave her a food dump and took her off.
Similarly, I'd carry a lot of food with me socially and any neutrality to loud noises such as fireworks would be rewarded with a whole load of food (or ball or praise or whatever floats dog's boat) and then back home again or at least away from the noise ASAP.

 

[SaddlePsych'D]

Maybe I need to have some higher value treats with me on our upcoming walks just in case. It struck me that coming home the other day was fine as we were only a couple of houses along but if it had happened further away it might not have been suck a good idea to be running all the way home in a panic!