It’s that time of year again - fireworks

[greybears]

I don’t have any pets, so I’m lucky that I don’t have to worry about this, but I still feel for animals, wildlife, people with disabilities, etc when they start. Some have just started going off in the street behind me, and I can hear next doors dog going crazy. I’m not against them, and I know it’s only once a year - well, not really, as people do them on Halloween now, all through November and at Christmas. There’s always people posting in Facebook groups asking for a heads up if there’s anything planned, but not everyone is on social media or even cares. I do think they could be silent though. It would still be nice and fun to look at, but it wouldn’t really cause any distress then.

Literally the same story with me.
I phoned them multiple times about a horse nearby that was in a horrific condition. If I showed the photos, people would be shocked. It's horrific. RSPCA basically went 🤷‍♀️. He's got water. Absolutely infuriating and so upsetting. He disappeared from the field a few months afterwards so god knows what happened to the poor thing 😞

Great big shake-the-houses booms again and again? Hell yeah the police should tell them to stop. This should not be happening. I wouldn't phone about pop-pop-pop sounds. But when I have to stick my fingers in my ears and I'm jumping out of my skin at the huge explosion sounds at 5-8pm repeatedly, they are bastards. I am NBU.

God it's actually depressing, how badly does an animal have to be treated for them to intervene?

I'll pop and check on them in the morning, still worrying about them now.

The law allows fireworks until midnight tonight, you would just be wasting everyone’s time and making yourself look bad

I think the issue these days is that it happens more than once a year. If it were only once, then people could give their pets something to help calm them down, and that would be much easier to manage.

In my area, people have been setting fireworks off since Halloween, this week, tonight, and likely will keep doing it randomly until New Year's Eve. So, while I understand where people are coming from when they say it’s only once a year, that's not really true anymore. I think that’s what frustrates people.

Really? You can see wild birds at night? Whereabouts are they?

This is a post from a Wildlife Rescue centre and what birds will be experiencing due to fireworks noise:

I could earlier when local fireworks were going off. We had some pigeons on next door’s roof and small ones in the tree in the garden. But then my dog and rabbits couldn’t care less and react more to a police car siren. Clearly animals are weird in my world.

So bonfire night has been celebrated by millions of people for centuries, then you get a dog who's scared of fireworks and want to ban it. And I'm the arse wipe?

Next door had fireworks for the first time.

They were going off just over our aviary. I went out to check on the birds and they were most put out to be woken by me with a torch. They came out from under their wings, looked at me with bleary eyes and stuck their heads away again and went back to sleep.
They were clearly far more disturbed by me with a torch than the fireworks which were making me jump.

Autistic kids... people from war torn countries...

The air is thick n stinks too... cant be good breathing it all in... I struggled a bit tonight just going to the shop. Live in a residential area and it was so loud I ran from the car.

Wild birds are stressed by fireworks
https://www.aru.ac.uk/news/fireworks-cause-stress-and-disruption-to-birds

Yeah and it always goes on late too annoying children who need to go to bed. Its still going here and it'll be midnight soon.

Have you tried gabapentin? It was the only thing we hadn’t tried and every year our dog was shaking to the point of looking like a seizure. This year, we got some gabapentin prescribed and it has made a massive difference.

My animals are not bothered by fireworks at all but I still think it’s incredibly antisocial to let off loud ones for prolonged periods in residential areas. It’s just annoying as fuck. And they’re usually rubbish. If you must gawp at some pretty lights and loud bangs then go to an organised display where the quality will be a lot better than the supermarket ones that people let off in their back yards.

It’s just another example of selfish people doing what they want for their own enjoyment while giving no thought to those around them.

I’m not anti fireworks and am never that person complaining on Facebook about them but we live in a very quiet street and someone started letting them off after 10pm! I’m gobsmacked that anyone would think that was acceptable. Why wait till then?!

Completely agree with this. Prior to Hallowe'en we had lots of fireworks going off nearby for Diwali and none of the regular firework complainers that I know said anything about them. As soon as fireworks start for Halloween and Bonfire night, the moaning starts.
Wonder why this is. The Diwali display went on for a while and I enjoyed watching it from my bathroom window.

Yes, because you're being purposely obtuse. Because 1.)it wasn't just my dog who was terrified of fireworks. 2.)I mentioned that there are people who have reasons to be shit scared of fireworks, but you're only focussing on the fact that I mentioned pets.

You're either obtuse, ignorant, or incredibly thick. Which one would you rather be?

I’m really lucky in that all of my pets have never been bothered by the noise of them (and they’re ok during thunderstorms too). However, I know a few people whose pets really don’t like them.

Personalky, I hate them from my time living in London. Had a few walks home from the tube station with idiots deliberately setting them off across the road/pavement - not a nice experience at all.

I would much rather they were not for sale to the general public. Licensed displays only. Don’t care if that makes me seem like a killjoy.

Indeed not.

But posts from pet owners with no self awareness complaining about wildlife, selfishness, PTSD and the like without even considering how that might be reflected back at them are basically part of the holiday now.

I love fireworks…well I love good fireworks. The few people do their back garden to me are pointless and crap. I think they should ban the sale of fireworks to the public and only do set organised displays. That way it is controlled on number of days location etc. I went and sat and watched a display from a distance away as did lots of others on Saturday so you can still do low cost.

It’s not just them being annoyed though. Every year there are dogs, horses and wildlife that are literally frightened to death by them. You think animals deserve to die to balance out your inconvenience?

I hate them. They are awful for animals, but also people with additional needs/neurodiversity, PTSD, dementia.

Where we live, twats basically set them off from October to January. Last night someone launched a display to rival Sydney harbour at new year at 1:30am.

the park is also full of yobs who think it’s funny to deliberately fire them at passers by.

Do you also apply this principle to the damage done by pets? I expect you probably know huge numbers of animals die because of the dogs and cats people choose to keep for their own enjoyment.

this thread every year. It’s like it’s a new thing. Zzzzz