Alabama's Morning News with JT
Heidi Herriott tells us how to prepare our pets for fireworks
Joining us now is animal behavioral expert to hand trainer. Heidi Harriet joins us to talk about our pets and the fireworks. Heidi, welcome in, thanks for being here. - Good morning, glad to be here. It's a big week for this. - Oh my gosh, we go through it every year. And I do want to talk a little bit more beyond just dogs because, you know, I want to talk about livestock, for instance, you know, cattle, if you've got cattle or if you get, you know, if you love horses and you've got horses, we'll get to that in just a minute. But I need help, I need real help with my Australian shepherd. She is a maniac. Their job is to work and she's really good. She's sweet as can be. But the minutes flash of lightning comes through our windows or she hears just a peep of thunder. Oh my gosh, she's crawling under your feet or behind the chairs and just behind the toilet. She's looking for a hiding spot, won't go out. And, you know, we have to give her these little biscuits that are like, you know, chilling biscuits, you know, from the pet store. (laughing) - Oh yeah. - I wish I had something, you know, I guess it's cruel to give them dramamine, but. - How do you react to that is my question. What's your reaction to that? - To the dog or to the thunder? - To the dog. - Oh, okay. - How do you react to the dog? Are you sympathetic for her? - Oh, yeah, yeah, we've got one of those vests you put around them to make them feel secure. - Okay, yeah. - We've got the little biscuits and everything. - No, I'm not gonna force her out into the cold and you'll deal with it, you know, walk through your pain here. - No, but I'm asking because there's a way forward and that would be to be, not to not be sympathetic but to be very matter of fact. Because, yeah, 'cause you're concerned for her as you should be. But yes, Aussie's needed job. So that one thing is make sure she's getting enough energy out and it needs to be mental and physical. Those courses, agility courses are great. - Well, you know, and I do have her working some crossword puzzles, but she's-- - Oh, well, there you go. - She keeps dropping the pencil. But, you know, I've also got a golden retriever and I would think that the golden retriever, who's so chill, would, you know, kind of rub on the fawner. But no, if something's going down, pepper my Aussie is waking up, sugar are golden going, hey, I'm freaking out. Why aren't you freaking out? Let's go. - Yeah, right, exactly. Join me here. Come on, let's do this. - No, the way out is training. And so we're right up against it now. So that could help you a lot this time. So absolutely, you know, if you have the best, these are all to create, you know, cover the symptoms of the bigger issue. But I always tell people, if you're really nervous, you take the drugs and your dog will calm down. But, and the headband has all that stuff. But yeah, Aussies, there's other terriers too. - Yeah. - Very high-strung dogs. So, you know, role play it. Put on some music. Put your dog on a leash. Keep them with you. Don't let them scamper all over. And distract them. Have them do some, some demands. Some sit, stay down, toy puzzles, anything like that. And we can, you know, we have the opportunity to put on a fireworks store display on our YouTube channel. And then when the fireworks are on, I say put on a comedy or something you like and relax yourself and our animals are taking a key from a cue from us. Big service dog. When you, a service dog looks to its owner to know what to do next and to get approval or see if everything's okay. I say that's like a small child, having a small child in your care is nervous. - Yeah. - They're gonna look at you as they go, oh my goodness. And you can either go, oh my goodness, back or you can say, hey, we got this. Look at me, we're good. - Okay. - We're gonna be fine. - So, before we get- - Very matter of fact. - So, before Judy and I give the dog the biscuits, maybe we should have a couple. - Yeah, take a couple of the- - Okay. - Well, let me- - What about horses? - On a more serious note though, there is 50% increase in lost pets this week. - Who know? - So, yeah, please be very careful about letting them out to run and not realizing that they're gonna scale the fence because they're scared or they get off the leash, that kind of thing. So, get the energy out earlier in the day, go for walks, get to mental stimulation. And then if you run them right during the fireworks time, just offset that a little bit. If they like kennels, kennels are a great place for dogs. They're little, you know, dogs are den dwellers. So, that's also good too, but don't let them just scamper around the house. - Okay. - And you mentioned livestock. I'm a horse trainer as well. I do exactly the same thing with my horses. You're gonna be fine. I kind of stay in their brain a bit. They connected. They can't multitask. We can't either. We think we can, but animals don't multitask. So, if you're keeping their brain busy, they can't really do the other thing. So, think about that. - So, do horses get freaked out like my Australian Shepherd does? - Some horses do, but a lot of times, it's more because of the way the owner is not giving them enough confidence and leadership. Yes, you have the occasional animal who will be more nervous, but I'm a third generation trainer and hundreds of animals we've owned or trained. I just don't remember having this problem because our training, the foundation program is strong enough that they're looking to us to see what to do. - Oh, great. - And that's the way forward. - Yeah, great. - What part of the world-- - I have a podcast on this as well on my channel. - Heidi Harriet, check her out. She's really good. - Yeah, Heidi Harriet.com. - Yeah, what part of the world do you live in? - I'm up in Burlington, Vermont for the summer gonna watch the fireworks on the water, Lake Champlain tonight and I'm from Florida. - Oh, so you normally live in Florida? What part of Florida are you? - I'm in Florida. St. Pete, Tampa Bay area. - Okay, okay, yeah, my brother lives down that way, but I was thinking maybe I can get you from over next weekend and work with my dogs, but I guess not. Heidi, I enjoyed chatting with you and I'll check out your podcast, Heidi Harriet. There she is, animal behavior expert and trainer. Good advice, thank you, Heidi.