Henry and Fireworks
Henry had an extreme anxiety attack last night, the likes of which I haven’t seen since I first got him.
Realizing that my juvenile neighbors were going to be playing with explosives regardless of the city laws that forbid fireworks within city limits, I decided to bring him with me to the bonfire. I also brought over 100 flying fireworks with me. I figured that if I was there, he wouldn’t freak out too badly. Boy, was I wrong!
Things started out OK. He didn’t like the cold, but welcomed the fire and was happy to stay by my side. He was on edge and was doing his guard dog thing when anyone joined us around the fire, but there was a young boy to play and run with and there were lots of happy people talking and chattering. I put the boy (Fred, Jr.) in charge of him (don’t let him eat anything!) and they were playing and running together.
After I shot off about 10 bottle rockets of varying sizes and was about to start playing with mortars, Fred, Jr. ran up to me and said Henry wasn’t doing OK. I took his pulse and it was around 3 beats per second, which works out to … gulp… roughly 180 beats per minute. That’s not good. He was standing with the tip of his tail tickling his ribcage, his back arched, and was just shaking. Not good. I know better than to take him inside and try to leave him alone… I gave him about three minutes to calm down, and then checked his pulse again. Still way too high. We got in the car and left. He stayed in the back seat down on the floor the entire ride home. When we got home, he immediately passed out when he was in one of his “safe places” at my feet.
Since he’s already on 50mg+ of prozac daily (Reconcile) for a 55 lbs dog, the vet said not to give him anything else like Benadryl or Acepromazine. He’s been OK with thunderstorms so far, but we haven’t really had a good one in six months… I think I might ask her about something to use in that kind of situation in case I CAN’T remove him from the environment.