People Spent 4th Of July Comforting Shelter Dogs Who Were Terrified Of Fireworks

• Hundreds of people are skipping the Fourth of July fireworks display to comfort dogs in a shelter in Phoenix.
• The shelter has started an annual event called ‘Calming The Canines’ where people are invited to keep the pups company on Independence Day.
• The event also led to some dogs finding their forever homes.

How did you spend Fourth of July this year? There is little doubt that most people gazed up at the sky to enjoy the awesome fireworks display to celebrate the country’s independence. However, some people decided to do something different this year – they camped out at shelters to comfort the dogs who were terrified of the noisy fireworks.

Maricopa County Animal Care and Control (MCACC) in Phoenix, Arizona came up with an excellent way to keep the shelter dogs calm. They hosted an annual event called “Calming The Canines”. The event calls on people to visit the shelter and keep the dogs company and distract them from all the noise during Fourth of July. So far, the special event has been going on for three years and more people are joining to help the pooches.

Singing to the dogs clearly kept them calm.

So how do these people keep the dogs calm? Everyone has their own technique. Some would sing to the dogs or read to them. One person even just sat with a pup and gave them several treats. Either way, all of these worked in distracting the pooches from all the noise outside.

The idea for “Calming The Canines” is truly awesome considering that dogs can get very scared when the fireworks exploding everywhere. MCACC spokesman Jose Santiago explained that animals can get stressed and end up hurting themselves during Fourth of July.

“We knew that dogs can hear fireworks at a much louder decibel than we as humans can hear it,” pointed out Santiago. “So we started thinking, ‘What can we do to keep them as calm as possible?’ So we decided that a lot of times just the simple comfort of someone being near them is more than enough and that’s really how ‘Calm the Canines’ began.”

Not surprisingly, the event didn’t just keep the dogs calm, it also helped some of them find their forever homes.

“It’s very symbiotic to bring the public there and to have the public interact with the dogs,” event attendee Amy Engel said. “Many of these people came back and adopted a dog, so it was a win-win.”