It’s possible to enhance the confidence, courage and calmness of your pets during scary times like fireworks, thunderstorms and other sudden, scary noises.
Loud and sudden sounds like Fireworks may not be the favorite sounds for your pets. Thunder, lightening, gunshots, cars backfiring, explosive or sudden loud sounds, sirens, pounding rain on roofs can all be scary for dogs, cats and horses. Here are tips that can enhance your pet’s confidence, courage and calmness during scary times.
Methods helping your pets deal with reactivity to sounds can range from punishment, negative reinforcement techniques, positive reinforcement, confinement, comfort and medications.
Looking at behaviors of your pets in relation to the fight, flight, freeze reactions can offer a new perspective and fuller understanding of what is going on for your animal.
Often we simply do not know what to do to help behaviors that are difficult.
A new vantage point can offer compassion, why some methods don’t work so easily, and can help you make more informed choices about what you can do to help your animals more readily – and effectively.
Let’s look at Motivating Forces
Those Deeply Rooted Instincts like fight, flight, freeze, faint or fool around can create reactions when danger is perceived.
When scared in the wild, it is natural to fight, flee, freeze, faint, & under some circumstances to fool around in order to distract.
In order for your body to RUN for your life, Fight as if your life were at stake, or Freeze to make yourself invisible – are all to save your life.
A few of the body functions regulated by these instincts are the size of your
pupil for intensified vision; gut motility and urinary output to ‘unload’ your system
so all focus and ability is on the task at hand for survival. And adrenaline gets pumped.
Most people are familiar with the fight-or-flight stress reactions.
Some Symptoms we see with our animals when distressed
- Nervous and unsettled
- Shallow breathing, panting
- Pacing
- Vomiting
- Destructive behavior like chewing or clawing at furniture, walls, windows
- Escape attempts
These behaviors work really well out in the wild for animals. In domestic situations however, these reactions do not always get along easily with everyday life.
For instance:
- Have you ever thought your horse or dog is really smart generally,
but simply can’t understand why they can’t think under certain circumstances? - Have you ever been frustrated or embarrassed when at the vet’s
office, or when a loud noise is scaring them, or when they are
highly stressed and you can’t do a thing to change their behavior? - Have you ever been scared and cannot think clearly yourself?
- Or ever been really upset and cannot be soothed out of it?
- Has anyone ever told you to “Just get over it?” Or ‘Just relax!”
- Or perhaps you have wanted to relax or fall asleep at night but you just can’t make yourself ‘just relax’ or sleep?
Our survival instinct is extremely strong and not easily be overridden by ‘thinking.’ Your body chooses according to what it perceives rather than what you think. The same thing happens for all of us, including dogs, cats, horses.
3 Key Holistic Tools for Thunderstorm and Firework Season
Whatever the cause, you can take definite steps to help your animal. Here are a few of the tools that I have found to be extremely useful.
- Essential Oils Freshly cultivated and steam distilled, the essential oils in Young Living’s collection are life-enhancing gifts from the plant kingdom, revered for centuries for their restorative properties to body, mind, and spirit.
- Flower Essences are energetic tools. They offer us information of an energetic nature. We experience them energetically and use them in our energetic systems, something I also refer to as our electrical systems for support and enhancing greater balance.
- Tellington TTouch is a gentle approach to influencing behavior, health & performance. More than just a training method, TTouch is a system of gentle touch that works at the cellular level to activate the body’s potential for radiant health and well-being.
Combining easy to learn bodywork, leading exercises, and ground exercises, TTouch has been a leading method to enhance the quality of life for all animals.
UPCOMING EVENT
Essential Oils and Animals Educational Retreat
with Sandy Rakowitz
Dates: Saturday – Sunday August 1 & 2, 2015
Location: Walnut Hill Farm, Charlottesville, VA
You’ll learn many empowering techniques and methods to safely use essential oils with dogs, cats, horses, watch demonstrations, have lots of hands-on experiences – and there’ll be so much more!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS AND TO REGISTER
Early Bird pricing is listed on the info – registration page – and ends July 17th!
Plus, there’s a SUPER Extra Bonus, Two For One Offer – check it out !
Sandy, I would love to come, but my SSI does not allow for extras like this, even though I know it would help Liz and me. Liz had hard a time with the fireworks and thunderstorms and my migraines make it hard for me to minister to her as I wouldlike to be able to do, although T-Touching helps. Waking up at midnight to find her literally climbing the walls is not easy on either of us. Have a wonderful weekend!