Why I fear the lockdown fireworks will be worse than ever
AS I sit and type out this column, I’ve got a big, fluffy dog curled up in a tight ball on my lap, quivering. Some urchin is letting fireworks off a few streets away from my house and Rupert is terrified of them.
He’s a three and-a-half year-old cockapoo, and all the other things that tend to bother dogs have no effect on him. He’s usually very placid, easygoing and he loves life.
But right now, he just wants the ground to swallow him up. Or maybe that’s what he’s thinking is going to happen. Because somebody spent £20 on a box of rockets and now they’re taking great delight in watching them all shoot a few feet up in the air and explode into a pathetic circle of colours.
I used to enjoy fireworks. As a child, when it seemed magical, and there was something almost anarchic about being able to make so much noise, I loved bonfire night.
The smouldering stick that set them off, the smoke they would emit as they screamed towards the sky, the fact we had to stand so far away from them. Danger was fun for a growing boy – and fireworks were an annual dose of pyrotechnic joy and wonder.
In a sense, I don’t actually mind them too much now. I’m not sure I’d pay money to go and see a display, but will happily watch them from my window. The trouble is, as soon as they start, my first thought is pacifying Rupert. Keeping his stress levels down.
Rupert’s defence mechanism during what has nowadays become a fortnight-long firework season is to get as close as he can to us. His fear causes him to shiver incessantly and this causes him to heat up. So he spends the night panting, pressed tightly against me or my wife and generally looking frightened and miserable.
Having a warm, fluffy, vibrating, panting, 12kg dog permanently attached to one’s side night after night loses its appeal pretty quickly.
In the past, we’ve tried to beat the system and charge off in our motorhome ahead of November 5. We’ve used Google Maps to find what we think will be a very isolated spot somewhere in the country and parked up in a layby, hopeful of a quiet night. But the trouble with remote spots, we once discovered, is they’re a perfect place for idiots to slope off to and show off the supermega-banger rockets they bought for £50 from their local firework stockist. So that plan didn’t work at all.
We’ve tried wrapping tight clothing around Rupert, and that works a bit. We’ve tried doggy aromatherapy, we’ve tried masking the sound with music, we’ve tried calming treats and we even once suggested to him he should take a sheer defiance approach. But sitting him in front of a window as we all watched the bright colours of our local display light up the sky only made things worse.
All this wouldn’t be quite so bad if fireworks were only set off on bonfire night itself. I’ve always supported calls for a ban on shops selling fireworks that can be let off in gardens. I’d be happy if the firework season was confined to just one or two nights, and just a handful of professional, organised displays. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, I just want to protect my pooch.
But year on year, within a day of them going on sale in the shops, the pops, bangs and screams start echoing around our town, and Rupert’s season of stress and fear begins. It’s awful.
And it’s not just Rupert that suffers. So many animals; dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, poultry etc, they all freak out when they hear rockets exploding above them in the sky.
It would be a manageable thing if it was just one or two nights per year. Most animals would cope if it was just one big half-hour display of bangs and flashes a few miles down the road – but when our pets are bombarded by them night after night, and from every direction, it starts to get a bit too much for them.
And, unfortunately for Rupert, with all the big organised displays having been cancelled this year, I suspect his annual ordeal will be worse than ever this time. Poor little thing.