Noise phobia in dogs causes significant suffering during thunderstorms, fireworks and other loud events and benefits from comprehensive management combining behavioral and medical approaches.
Noise phobia welfare represents a significant and underaddressed problem as millions of dogs experience intense fear and suffering during fireworks events, thunderstorms and other noise exposures annually. The welfare cost includes not just the acute fear response but the anticipatory anxiety that can begin hours before predicted events. Effective management requires both immediate management strategies for acute events and longer-term behavioral modification to reduce sensitivity. Medical treatment with anxiolytic medications significantly reduces acute suffering and should be considered for moderately to severely affected dogs rather than leaving them to suffer. Owner normalization of fear responses — providing comfort rather than reinforcing fear — is not welfare-positive and the evidence base for this advice needs updating.