I speculate that somewhere last weekend there were some Labrador retrievers that became very excited when they heard noises that sounded like gunfire and thought, “Oh boy, oh boy, we’re going to get to go hunting and jump into the water and retrieve something!” and were disappointed when they spent the rest of the weekend at home.
Yup, fireworks being set off tonight throughout our neighborhood. In a traditionally dry area and dry time of the year, during a horrendous drought. This will be going on for weeks.
I would welcome a thunderstorm right now. Mine don’t like them but they are not as bad as fireworks. For fireworks, mine panic and are suffering for the duration. It happens to a lot of dogs, across a lot of breeds. And all because some miscreants think blowing shit up and breaking the law is fun.
Not the point I’m making, though: it’s perfectly reasonable to care more about your own pets than about some random animals, just as it’s perfectly reasonable to care more about your siblings than the homeless person in the street. However, expecting others to make the same distinction is incongruous—to them, your pets are also just some random animals. So, you’d have to either expect them to care about animal welfare in general to respect your pets’ well-being, or you’d have to expect them to care about not scaring animals for the pleasure of fireworks, while being indifferent about killing them for the pleasure of their taste. Since the latter strikes me as inconsequent, it seems to me that those wanting to end the suffering of animals due to fireworks ought to strive for ending it more generally, too.
Otherwise, it seems to me that the argument really just becomes ‘I made a decision to own pets, and now everyone has to adapt their behavior to accommodate my choice’.
Of course, there are plenty of other good arguments against setting off fireworks, especially in conjunction with drunken festivities and a dry climate. But I don’t think that expecting the ‘fucking fucks’ who do so to be beholden to pet owner’s choices is one of them, much less grounds for threatening violence.
Absolutely, why should I care about them more than a dog?
And now I know . . . the rest of the story.
The guy who sets off some dynamite for the 4th of July is known to pretty much everyone, police included. He has a background in demolition and people look the other way when he makes a huge boom once a year.
I had heard about a local guy who helped out when a local park/trail needed to blast away some rock in order to construct a bridge over a creek. The board of directors of the trail had bids for the job. This guy stepped forward and offered to do it for free. Half of the board said no thanks, but there was dissension and the board members who wanted to accept his offer met him at the site early one morning and he blasted the rock away.
Everything went well, but the board members who disagreed all quit. Life in the country, I guess.
This is one of my favorite “crybaby boomer” phenomenons. People setting off fireworks has never bothered me, and I think the people who cry about them are all just babies that need to get over themselves. Sometimes “outdoors” has loud noises. Ever heard of thunderstorms? I grew up in an area where you regularly heard guys sighting in their rifles or target shooting throughout the day etc. If you don’t want to hear anything loud outside move to a desert where storms are rare and then live on acreage out by yourself, otherwise quit crying.
yup…I agree with Quicksilvers short assessment.
"
I’m just glad the bullshit is over with for another year. I don’t get the attraction to all the fucking noise for these childish fucking assholes"
OK, I’ll go along with this if y’all go along with the outdoor cannabis patch I’m planting. Sometimes “outdoors” has plants. Ever seen a tree? My local po-po have decided to ignore illegal firework use, all I ask is they do the same for my guerrilla grow.
Hey, I’m for sure down with that, and I don’t even use.
I mean I think part of why police ignore illegal fireworks is they would be very difficult to track down and in some places so many people are setting them off, they wouldn’t have time to respond to real crime. Cannabis patches are a little easier to tie to the owner; that being said I imagine in much of the country low scale cannabis growing probably is having a blind eyed turned toward it, and I would certainly be fine with more of that happening.
I’ll get my grow going then!
Yeah, PTSD is just people being weak and silly.
Right! You just slap them in the face and tell them to snap out of it. Isn’t that how this is done?
On the other hand 9% of the population serving in WWII didn’t slow down our fireworks celebration so why should be slowed it down now when less than 1% has served in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Right, they just suffered in silence.
Or it wasn’t a big deal.
You think PTSD was something that didn’t happen until Vietnam?
And is limited to veterans?
Here’s some learnin’ for ya.
PTSD develops in about 1 of 3 people who experience severe trauma
Eh, I am a dog owner of 2 very skittish dogs, and I can’t really get behind this pitting.
Yes, neighborhood fireworks seemed to be at an all-time high this year. It was about 9pm-1 or 2 am Friday, Saturday and Sunday and from 9-11 on Monday night. There was a very eerie warzone feel each night. Fireworks are legal to purchase but illegal to set off in Ohio, and in my city, but this seems to stop no one.
But, whatever. We knew it was coming. I gave the dogs calming chews for a week beforehand. We spent each night in the basement listening to baseball, watching movies and doing all the laundry I’d saved up for the weekend. The calming chews in no way STOPPED their very negative visceral reaction to the noise, but the chews definitely helped them calm down once we were down in the basement.
The whole rigamarole is annoying, and it keeps me from ever being able to enjoy the 4th. But it’s better than thunder storms - those are unplanned and they seem to only happen when I’m trying to work or trying to sleep. It’s better than the skunking we just went through. Better than the random panic attack my dog managed to give himself in the middle of the night a couple weeks ago. It’s even better than his new-found fear of the Amazon truck and the beepy sound it makes as it “chases” us around the neighborhood on our evening walks.*
And, you know, my dogs are just dogs. They get over it and sleep great after expending all that energy being scared. My dad is an actual Vietnam combat vet with actual PTSD and he actually is having his own human emotional reactions to these fireworks. Those people have it rough. People affected by resulting wildfires have it worse. People who are innocent victims of firework explosion mishaps have it worse. They all have reason to curse the fireworks idiots and wishing them death.
But being that angry because your dogs are scared? Yes it’s annoying, and it’s annoying for many days. But this level of vitriol is just not worth it. Take some of those dog drugs and chill, man.
*Funny side note: My dog is afraid of all those things I mentioned, as well as flies or bugs in the house, and of my neighbor’s 8 lb dog because the owners have to yell for her to come in and their yelling scares him. But you know what never makes him flinch? The starter pistol at the track meets at the school next door. He’s never reacted once to a gun. Rescues are so weird - what did he go through that guns are nbd but flies are The Devil?!