Fireworks, what are they go for? a Guest Post From Pocket Angel Dog

 

Hello, my friends. This week Foley has allowed me to write the blog. Last Tuesday was Foley Monster Day, her birthday, and she is sleeping off a week of wild partying. Anything can happen at a Foley Monster party, save one: Fireworks.

No angel will have fireworks at a party. We are no longer afraid of them. But it is out of respect for the many mortal souls who spend the days around our country’s Independence living in fear, which, when the show begins, turns into a blind panic where we forget all our training.

I am the only pup my mom has had who was afraid of fireworks, a fairly good record for a five-dog pack over nearly 30 years.

I did not like thunder and lightning either, but the fireworks were worse because they went on for hours.

I was lucky to be small. Daddy would carry me around the house. Sometimes we would stop, and he showed me the fireworks, saying there was nothing to be worried about.

Just unexplained, loud, colorful, explosions in the sky.

Dad was very patient with me, doing all he could to keep me at an eight on the nervous scale.

I always felt bad, feeling like I was inconveniencing him. Now, when it thunders, or there are fireworks, it makes him miss me more.

My Day was doing what tens of thousands of pet owners do during the week of our country’s independence. They pet, they soothe, they hold, and they pray that the barrage will stop. Sometimes it does stop. Sometimes it begins again and continues past midnight and into the crooked numbered hours.

And it starts at dusk the next night, and maybe the night after that.

They all run together for us, that is how it is in hell.

When I was a mortal dog I never knew why people were allowed to set fire to the sky. Every other time, you can’t disturb the peace. Since I became immortal I learned the reason: Patriotism.

I used to think that word meant everyone fighting for their country, and one another.

But I was wrong.

It means doing what you want, even if it is illegal, and hurts your neighbors. And the souls they love.

To speak out against it is to be the worst thing: Unpatriotic. To avoid that label the police don’t stop these endless backyard displays. To avoid that label the lawmakers won’t pass laws to arrest, prosecute and fine those who set off illegal explosions that only bring joy to the fool with the match, and their drunken friends.

I thought when someone was killed shooting off fireworks they would stop: They haven’t.

I thought that when dozens of dogs end up getting loose and running for their lives, to be taken in by animal control until their parents are found they would stop: They haven’t.

It’s a shame.

The only time I am glad to be at the Bridge is the first week in July.

I know thousands of dog lovers who, if they could afford it, would flee the country that week.

You know, for patriotism.

Since I was a pup something has broken in our country.

I think it was patriotism.