I used to love the 4th of July... but since I got Buddy, it's not been the same.
He has to stay on tranquillizers for the entire weekend; if he doesn't then I fear he'll surely die of a heart attack. We've been caught off guard by Summer thunder storms, and I have personally felt the wrath of his fear. (Bruises, bumps, cuts..etc) because he is so deathly terrified of thunder, fireworks, gun shots. He gets 100% out of control jumping on me, plowing me over in the house. If I leave him in the house with TV blasting, radio in every room blasting, fans on, anything and everything to drowned out the noise, it doesn't matter, he still hears it and tried to get out of the house by jumping on windows and trying to break them. If we are outside, he'll try to jump over the fence (which his big butt can not do!!) Or he's even latched onto the fence trying to rip it apart to get out of the yard.
The dog psychologists we've been working with say it must go back to when he was living in the woods alone. Having no shelter and having to deal with thunder storms alone, they think it's just the fear coming back to him, remembering how terrified he was. They don't know if he'll ever get over it, but we are working on desensitizing him from those sounds.
I cry my eyes out every time he gets like that, I'm so afraid that one day it will be to much stress on his heart.... and I'll loose him.

Sierra on the other hand.... she can and has slept through anything!