Pet Safety Reminders For the 4th of July

Nevena Nacic
by Nevena Nacic
Published:  June 26th, 2024
AYO Production/Shutterstock

When preparing for a fun-packed Fourth of July, it’s essential to consider your pets. While fireworks, barbecues, and picnics provide endless fun to people, all the festivities can be frightening and potentially dangerous for cats and dogs.


Whether or not you are gearing up for your own Fourth of July celebration, there are several things you can do to keep your pets safe during festivities. Here’s how to keep your pets safe this Fourth of July:


1. Keep Your Fur Baby Indoors

Pets and fireworks don’t mix, so it’s best to keep cats and dogs indoors during Independence Day celebrations. 


Dogs and cats are more sensitive to noise than people and are afraid of fireworks. Some pets can become so scared when fireworks start to go off that they may bolt. Keeping your pet indoors will ensure they remain safe and sound during the celebration. 


2. Create a Quiet and Safe Space for Your Pet

Consider how the Fourth of July celebration can affect your pet. Dogs and cats are more sensitive to noise and will appreciate having a safe and quiet space to retreat to.


The laundry room or a bathroom often don’t have windows and may serve as a less-noisy sanctuary for a scared pet. Throw in a cozy bed, some of your pet’s favorite toys, and a bowl of fresh water to help them relax.


3. Update Your Pets Microchip and ID Tag Information 

Even if you do everything right, accidents can still happen. 


If despite your best efforts your pet happens to get loose and run away, make sure they can be easily identified and returned to their home. Have your pet wear a collar with up-to-date contact information to make their return home more likely.


Microchipping your pet serves as an added method of identification. Unlike a collar with ID tags, a microchip can’t become lost and is your best bet for having your pet returned home safe and sound. 


4. Keep Your Pets Away From Alcohol

Alcohol is toxic to cats and dogs. Alcohol poisoning is common in pets and can happen from ingestion, inhalation, and skin absorption of alcohol or alcohol-containing products. 


Signs of alcohol poisoning include, staggering, excitement, lack of coordination, excess drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, depression, lethargy, increased thirst and urination, difficulty breathing, low body temperature, coma, and seizures.  


5. Keep Your Pet Away From Citronella

Citronella candles, torches, and sprays are commonly used in the summer as a mosquito repellant. However, none of these products are safe for pets to be around. 


Citronella plant is toxic to pets and can cause skin irritation, weakness, drooling, abdominal pain, and vomiting. If you’re planning on throwing a Fourth of July celebration in your backyard, keep your pets away from any citronella products, or better yet, opt for a pet-safe natural insect repellant. 


6. Know the Signs of Overheating

Pets don’t fare well in hot and humid weather, and being outside at high temperatures increases the risk of overheating. Ensure your pets have access to fresh cool water at all times, and provide plenty of shade to minimize the risk of overheating. 


Labored breathing, heavy panting, increased heart rate, and drooling are signs of overheating in pets. Brachycephalic breeds, like French bulldogs, pugs, and Boston terriers are at an increased risk of overheating, so extra care must be taken to keep these pups cool and protected from the scorching heat. 


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Nevena Nacic
Nevena Nacic

Nevena is a freelance writer and a proud mom of Teo, a 17-year-old poodle, and Bob, a rescued grey tabby cat. Since childhood, she had a habit of picking up strays and bringing them home (luckily, her parents didn't know how to say NO). When she's not writing for her fellow pet parents, Nevena can be found watching Teo sleep. To her defense, that's not as creepy as it sounds!

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However, when you enter a dog park, the expectation is that everyone within that set boundary is open to interacting with one another. Chance to Meet New Dog ParentsOur dogs aren’t the only ones who struggle at times to meet dog-friendly friends. As dog parents, we all know the challenge of explaining to our non-dog-parent friends why we would prefer to include our dogs in everything we do. If you don’t share your heart and home with a dog, you don’t understand just how special that bond can be. When we walk into a dog park, we know that any people we interact with during our visit are there for the same purpose—to give their dogs the best possible experience. This allows us to meet and connect with other dog parents, which can lead to doggy play dates and other get-togethers. Enrichment and Exercise Our dogs need exercise and mental stimulation to lead happy, healthy lives. While this can be provided at home with the help of snuffle mats, interactive dog toys, puzzle feeders, and other activities, there is something to be said about the joy dogs feel when running with their canine friends. If you have a high-energy dog, this is a good opportunity to encourage them to run, play, and wear themselves out without requiring you to run alongside them. Training Opportunity Are you looking for opportunities to train your dog to interact safely and respectfully with other pups? This can be challenging if you have only one dog at home. However, when you walk into a dog park, your dog will only encounter other dog-friendly dogs (one assumes, more on that later). This is a great time to show them how to interact appropriately without fearing that coming on too strong could trigger a dog fight with a dog-selective or reactive pup. This is also an excellent opportunity to train your dog to interact with people appropriately. People who walk into a dog park are usually dog lovers, so you don’t have to worry about your dog walking up to someone who is afraid of dogs. While this doesn’t negate the need to keep your dog from jumping all over someone without permission, it is a good spot to address your concerns and train your dog on interacting respectfully. Introduction to New experiencesDog parks also offer a safe space for your dog to discover and interact with new experiences. Dog parents may arrive with items that may otherwise trigger your dog – like bicycles, wagons, strollers, children, or people of different ages and ethnicities. Allowing your dog to experience all these people and items in a safe space is a great way to set them up for success as you head out into other areas of the world. For example, if your dog learns that a stroller isn’t “scary” when seeing one regularly coming into their favorite dog park, they are less likely to react to one when walking down the street. Safe from Many Outside Risks We all want to keep our dogs safe when they are playing. Unfortunately, this can be challenging if we don’t have the benefit of a fenced yard for them to run and play. When your dog is playing in a fenced dog park, you can rest assured that you don’t have to worry about outside dangers like your dog being stuck by a car. This alone is reason enough for many dog owners to familiarize themselves with the dog parks at home and in the destinations they are traveling to.

Wish Your Dog Could Understand You? New Study Says They Can!

You don’t have to be a dog owner to know that dogs can learn and understand commands like “sit” or “come”. But, a new study has made a groundbreaking discovery that dogs also know that certain words stand for specific objects. This finding won’t come as a big surprise to any dog owner who has ever asked their pup to “go get your toy” and, a minute later, been handed a chewed-up rubber ball or slobbery stuffed animal. Scientists have long been interested in learning whether dogs can truly associate words with objects. However, researchers couldn’t figure out whether dogs and other animals get a mental image when they hear an object's name. This would suggest that dogs have a better understanding of language than believed before. Researchers in Hungary have discovered that in addition to being able to respond to commands such as “sit”, “roll over”, or “stay” dogs can also grasp the essence of nouns. This relationship with language is called referential understanding, and it has been unproven in dogs until now. “When we are talking about objects, objects are external to the dogs and dogs have to learn that words refer, they stand for something that is external to them,” explained the study’s co-lead author, Marianna Boros, of the Department of Ethology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.To get some answers about what is happening in the dog brain when it processes words, Boros and her colleagues asked 18 dog owners to bring their pooches to the lab along with five objects the dogs knew well. The objects included balls, slippers, leads, rubber toys, frisbees, and other items.Researchers instructed the owners to say the words for the items before showing their dog either the correct object or a different one. For example, the owner might say “Rover, look, the ball”, but hold up a lead instead. During the tests, the researchers measured the dogs’ brain activity using non-invasive electroencephalography, or EEG. The idea was to see whether EEG could offer a better insight into dogs’ understanding of language. The brain recordings showed different patterns in the brain when the dogs were shown an object that matched or didn’t match the owner’s spoken word. The difference was even greater for the words owners believed their dogs knew well.The same results were seen when humans performed these tests and are widely accepted as people understanding the word well enough to form a mental image of the object they were later shown. “We expected that if a dog really understands the meaning of the object’s word, it will expect to see that object. And if the owner shows a different one, there will be a so-called surprise reaction in the brain. And this is exactly what we found,” said Boros according to ABC News.Lilla Magyari, also of Eötvös Loránd University, and the other co-first author, said that although some other animals have shown some degree of referential understanding of language, they have typically been trained to do so. In dogs, she explained, such capacities seem to be inborn and don’t require any particular training or talent. Researchers stress they aren’t claiming that dogs understand words as well as humans. Future studies are needed to determine whether dogs can generalize in the same way humans learn to as children.This study raises an interesting question of why, if dogs understand nouns, more of them don’t show it. One possible answer is that dogs know more than they are willing to show us.Join the PetGuide community. Get the latest pet news and product recommendations by subscribing to our newsletter here.

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