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Key points
- A high percentage of dogs become frightened by loud sounds such as fireworks, thunder or gunshots.
- Data shows that some breeds of dogs are markedly less susceptible to fear of loud noises.
- Older dogs are more likely to have a negative emotional response to intense sounds.
- There are some simple procedures to help reduce the feelings of fear evoked by occasional loud sounds.
In the middle of a severe rainstorm I received a panicky phone call from a friend who lives not far away from me.
"Angus is freaking out! I think it's the thunderclaps." To be clear, Angus is a West Highland White Terrier, and we live in Vancouver, Canada, where thunderstorms are a relatively rare event. My friend went on to describe Angus's behavior, which involved whining and barking, visibly trembling and shaking, seeking reassurance, and trying to hide behind his owner's legs. "Tell me what I'm supposed to do now," he pleaded.
Are Dogs Really Afraid of Loud Noises?
Fear of loud noises is a relatively common source of anxiety in dogs. To see how prevalent this fear is, we can consider a study conducted by Emily Blackwell, John Bradshaw, and Rachel Casey, researchers from the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol in the UK. As such research goes, this was a fairly large study involving a questionnaire completed by 3,897 dog owners, and also a structured interview with a smaller set of 383 dog owners. Participants were recruited in a variety of ways, including at dog shows, veterinary clinics, and even while out walking their dogs.
The main questionnaire asked for demographic information about the dogs and their owners, and then asked the critical question "Does your dog show a fearful response to noises?"
The structured interview with the smaller sample of owners asked more detailed questions. This determined precisely how the dogs typically responded to noise. It also asked about the effect that specific types of noise (including thunder, fireworks, gunshots, vacuum cleaners and so forth), had on their dog's behavior.
The results show that one 1 out of 4 dogs (25%) are classified by their owners as being afraid of loud noises. The detailed interview revealed that this number actually becomes larger if the question is framed as whether the dog had "ever shown any fearfulness" to a specific noise. In response to that question, it turns out that 83% of the dogs had shown fear in response to fireworks, 66% to thunderstorms, 26% to gunshots, 24% to cars backfiring, and 12% to loud noises on the television. That means that, on average, around half (49%) of the dogs had clearly shown fearfulness to some form of loud noise at least once. The evidence that the owners used was that, when the dog was confronted with a loud sound, they had observed behavioral signs similar to those shown by Angus, namely: vocalizing, trembling or shaking, attempting to hide, and what appeared to be seeking comfort from familiar people.
There was some generalization across sound sources since dogs that responded badly to fireworks tended also to be fearful of thunder and gunshots.
Which Dogs Are Likely to Be Most Afraid of Noises?
Age turns out to be a factor, since dogs that were fearful of noises tended to be older (in this study non-fearful dogs averaged 2.1 years of age while those that were afraid of noises averaged 4.2). There is some suggestion that exposure to a range of noisy stimuli when puppies were less than six months of age might have a protective effect against the development of fear responses to noise later on.
Genetics seems to play a role, since breed turns out to be a predictor of whether or not a specific dog is fearful of noises. The largest group of dogs in the test sample were mixed breeds (16%), and the investigators chose to use this group as their reference sample against which they compared the purebred dogs. It turned out that 12 breeds, or breed types, were significantly less likely to show fear responses to noise. Among the least sensitive dogs were some popular gun dog breeds, such as the Labrador Retriever, Cocker Spaniel, and Springer Spaniel. This should probably not be too much of a surprise since breeders of gun dogs tend to select those who have a tolerance to loud noises (such as shotguns going off near them) since a "spooky" sound-sensitive dog could not do the work that they are required to do.
Other breeds which appear to be tolerant of loud sounds turned out to include German and Belgian shepherds, Basset hounds, Dalmatians, Bulldogs, Poodles, and Northern-type dogs including Malamutes, Siberian Huskies, and Samoyeds.
What Can Be Done to Manage Noise-Related Anxiety?
Among dog owners who admitted to having fearful dogs, less than a third had ever sought advice or treatment for their dog's sound-related fear. Of those that went for help, their most common course of action was to ask a veterinarian for information about what could be done.
It appears that the reason that most owners did not try to treat their dog's problem had nothing to do with the severity of the behavioral symptoms, but rather was because the frequency of these frightening loud noises, such as thunder and gunshots, was low enough that the owners did not feel very concerned. After all, in the U.S., Independence Day (July 4) with its noisy fireworks only comes one day of the year, while in the UK fireworks are common mainly on Bonfire Night (November 5) and perhaps a few surrounding nights.
Fortunately, for those dogs exposed to loud noises frequently there are systematic desensitization treatments which reduce fearfulness and work quite well over the long-term.
For most cases, such as the situation with Angus, in which the anxiety-producing sounds are uncommon, there are some easy, straightforward, short-term solutions. For example, if you're dealing with storm-related sounds or fireworks-related noises, the first thing to do is to bring the dog indoors. Once inside it is useful to provide some background noise to help screen out the fear-producing sounds . The simplest sound sources to use for this involve turning on the television or radio; however a fan or another white noise source would probably work as well. In addition, it helps to offer the dog a place that he thinks of as being "safe," such as his kennel (if he tends to sleep or spend much time in it), or a familiar small, relatively enclosed space, such as a bathroom, or even under an end table next to the sofa. These are the solutions that I offered to Angus's owner, and they worked well enough for this particular situation.
Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission
References
Emily J. Blackwell, John W.S. Bradshaw, Rachel A. Casey (2013). Fear responses to noises in domestic dogs: Prevalence, risk factors and co-occurrence with other fear related behavior. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 145, 15– 25.
