To be sick of people moaning about their pets and fireworks?

[Sophiehoney]

There's currently a debate on my local Facebook page as the people in the street behind me let off a long, spectacular firework display in their back garden which was very loud.
It was absolutely brilliant and my kids loved it.

Someone has moaned that her four cats are terrified and others are joining in and saying their cats/dogs are also distressed.

They are all saying they should have had a warning?? Even though it's the weekend before bonfire night??

But what really annoys me is that if you click on this woman's name and see all her past posts, she's moaned about the same bloody thing at the same time of year for the past SIX years!!!

Why has she done nothing to prepare for this even though she knows full well it happens around the same time??!!!

When we got a puppy in 2012 I spent ages playing videos of loud noises - planes, motorbikes, fireworks etc so he would not be scared of them.

It worked brilliantly and he was not bothered at all. Then when he was 5 I was walking him one afternoon about 2pm so not dark in the slightest and as we walked past a garden some moronic idiot let a firework off. It was one of those really loud bang ones and my dog was terrified. Luckily I had tight hold of his lead as he tried to run. He was shaking and I could not calm him down. It was not even bonfire week.

After that no amount of trying to retrain him worked. He remained terrified of fireworks until he died last year.

Far too many idiots around to allow the public to have access to fireworks

Maybe a firework went off and the dog jumped out before the owner could do anything.

Maybe it was in the hot weather, you know when people have their windows open and don't expect idiots to be letting off fireworks.

Use your brain (if you have one).

What would you say to the people living in the tower block inLiverpool that was set alight last night? That they shouldn't live there? What about the fire service that came under attack? Maybe they should not be firefighters because they should realise the risk from moronic yobs?

It amazes me that people are suddenly so worried about scared animals at this time of year, when factory farming is the real horror we should be talking about.

Imagine having had your home set on fire and someone thinks it's ok to co-opt your experience to try and bolster a completely different and shit argument about pets.

This thread is about the interplay between pet ownership and fireworks, as was the sub argument you were engaging in until you realised you weren't being very persuasive. As with everyone else in this thread who's tried it, if you want to broaden the discussion to talk about other problems with fireworks, we're also going to be talking about other problems with pets. No doubt there'll have been more emergency service workers attacked by dogs than pets this year, for example.

People are a bit selective in their concerns. They worry about the furbaby but ignores that to feed furbaby (and maybe themselves) that other animals are kept in cruel conditions. Cats and dogs consume huge amounts of meat in the UK every day. No concerns about that though

🙄20% of all meat and fish consumed by dogs and cats.... they are better fed than many people

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/63673611

As far as I am concerned it is about banning bloody awful fireworks and the story about the yobs in Liverpool (and all the other horror stories across the country) show that fireworks should be banned.

I was not trying to be persuasive because I realise there are far too many selfish, entitled morons here that only care about themselves and don't give a fuck about cats, dogs, horses, wildlife, people with dementia, people with ptsd, babies etc etc etc to even bother trying to change their very small minds.

I am disgusted by factory farming too and that is why I am vegetarian.

The reason why you think that's relevant is because you either can't or don't want to understand that you as a pet owner are as selfish and entitled as anyone who likes fireworks, and lack the brains to understand what a hypocrite this makes you when you dare to whine about the impact on wildlife, emergency services, PTSD etc.

It's never not funny when whingeing pet owners delude themselves they have the moral high ground, though. Wonder how many animals your dog ate!

I think YANBU ultimately because this is something we know is going to happen every single year around this time, it isn’t new. It’s different when they randomly have a display in August or something and nobody is expecting it but everyone knows they will be let off the weekend before and after, as well as on the day.

I don’t have pets so have no idea how you prepare them for it but I guess that’s part of the responsibility of having one.

Yes. They say the poor wildlife will be frightened yet the very next day they are happy to let their dog off a lead to chase squirrels their cat out to hunt birds and mice.
They don't give a shit about wildlife just their pet.

Exactly.

And there's nothing particularly unusual about that, people routinely put their selfish preferences above the wider good. Pet ownership is only one way in which that happens. But the level of delusion is something else.

I agree that fireworks should be banned from sale to the general public immediately following the events in Merseyside last night, and then phased out completely, replaced by silent light shows.

Unfortunately, the trend of weaponising all sorts of things to harm others is only growing.

One example of this is that you now have to pay a licensed plumber to unblock a clogged drain, for example, when 5 years ago, you could purchase a drain-bomb from most hardware stores, which was a super-concentrated shot of H2SO4 that removed fat and hair quickly and efficiently, but had to be used with caution.

Back in the day it was assumed that most people would be capable of applying common sense to dangerous chemicals, and this approach allowed most household jobs to be carried out (at a much cheaper price) by the householder.

With the rise in the numbers of people willing to throw that kind of drain-bomb in people’s faces with malicious intent, the rules were, quite rightly, changed to prevent just anyone from trying to purchase them, and after yesterdays events with the firework attacks, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are also now immediately banned from sale in the UK…

I would, as it's a clearly unworkable idea given the public attachment to fireworks, the ease of importing them illegally and the need for some subsidy to introduce widespread light shows as a replacement when local authorities have no money. They're not going to be banned any more than dogs are.

Not sure why a pet owner is selfish and entitled in your eyes. What an idiot you are making of yourself.

Of course I care about wildlife being frightened, injured or even killed. Of course I care about people being scared or injured.

Do you even know how many horses alone are injured or killed every year due to fireworks. I bet you don't care. Horses that jump a fence and run in fright and get injured or killed. Horses that miscarry through fear.

As I said in one of my previous posts, i DID prepare for fireworks and my dog was not the slightest bit scared until someone let one off in daylight and not around 5th November as we walked past their garden. After that he was terrified and no amount of training helped.

Just how should we prepare for arseholes letting fireworks off on random evenings (and days)? In some areas they go on for weeks and from early afternoon when still light to late at night. Last night where I live there were still loud fireworks going off after 11pm but oh it's ok because some people like them

You speak for all dog owners do you? I have had quite a few dogs over the years and I have NEVER allowed them to chase any other animal.

Yes, it's quite obvious that you don't understand why pet owners are as selfish and entitled as anyone else who does something that causes wider harm purely for their own benefit. That much is very obvious.

Basically, pet ownership and fireworks are both examples of things that people do because they like them, even though there are downsides for others. So for example fireworks might cause a horse to miscarry. Pet cats kill over 50 millions birds a year in the UK according to the RSPB. But people still like doing both. You had a dog because you liked it, not for the wider good, and you didn't care whose PTSD you might trigger when you took it out.

It doesn't tend to go down very well if you tell people that a problem is serious enough for them to give up something they enjoy, like fireworks, but no serious enough for you to give up something you enjoy, like pet ownership. That's how you end up looking a tit.

That’s because we are a nation of pets lovers rather than animal lovers. People don’t care that much about farm animals and wildlife in comparison.

Why should people have to suffer them for weeks and weeks. If it was, as it used to be, just around the 5th of November then fine. But the first load of fireworks went off here on the 13th September and by October the first it was every single night.

Pretty much sums it up.

My dog was terrified. We did EVERYTHING we could, including prescription strength sedatives from the vet. He was still terrified.

Indeed, have some empathy.

Never mind the animals, I nearly abandoned my shift last night because they were setting them off right next to the building. I felt like a gibbering wreck.

There's no fucking need for them to be so loud. Silent ones need to be made normal. Autistic kids, cats and dogs etc shouldn't have to put up with fucking loud bangs every year.

It doesn't even stop there. It's now randomly from now until after new year!!

Because other people want to. Is the short answer.

People are, within reason, entitled to do what they please on their own property. By within reason I just believe that people should observe sociable hours, within the law that already exists.

Outside of that, it’s really none of anyone’s business what someone does in their own garden, and not their business if it’s a problem for others.

YANBU. It's ok to have to work around things sometimes. It's ok for things to be inconvenient sometimes. Society in general seems to have lost sight of this concept.

Of course its other people's business if its impacting them. Ffs.

Its completely anti social

Again though, that doesn't seem to matter when it's about people having pets which also impacts other people and can be anti social.

People can't have it both ways.