July Fireworks: Enemy #1
It's that time of year again...
Why I Hate Fireworks
I used to like July 4th and fireworks. As a kid, I mean. I remember wearing rubber Zorries in the hot summers in Fresno, California and eating yummy BBQ food and potato salad while waiting for the sun to go down. It was fun to light sparklers and those little black tablets that turned into stinky, snake-like things. (BTW, what were those made of?)
Call me “unpatriotic” if you want, but ever since I became a pet detective (in 1997), I’ve grown to HATE fireworks. Seriously. I can’t even look at them, I wish they would outlaw them. I spend the entire holiday, even days before the 4th of July, dreading them. That’s because in the span of a few hours, unsuspecting sweet and mellow dogs and well mannered cats become freaked out of their minds and bolt in a panic. They run away for what they believe will be safety but oftentimes their attempt at “freedom” from the noise causes their death. I see it every July and it just breaks my heart.
And its not only the USA that deals with summertime fireworks. Canadians deal with the same problem every July 1st at Canada Day celebrations and at the end of every October with fireworks at Halloween.
5 Tips to Keep Your Pet Safe During Fireworks
Two years ago, I worked with Petco Love Lost to create an educational video with tips on how to protect your pet during fireworks seasons. But I need to clarify something I said in the video. I believe I mentioned something like, “…if you take your pet with you to a fireworks event.” That was a script I was given to read. I want to stress that I DO NOT recommend or advocate that anyone takes a dog (or other pet) with them to a fireworks event! This is just courting disaster as the sudden explosion of a firecracker can send ANY dog (or animal) into the fight or flight mode!
Additional Lost Dog Prevention Tip: Martingale Collars
One additional prevention measure that we highly recommend for dogs is switching from a flat collar to what is called a martingale collar. Dogs can easily back out of a flat collar when they’re panicked. We see many cases where a dog freaks out, pulls backwards, his collar slips off, and he runs off in a blind panic while the person walking him is left holding a leash attached to a collar but no dog! Martingale collars prevent this type of escape as they apply pressure if the dog tries to back away, preventing an escape. You can find these collars at most pet stores.
Recovery Tip: Neon Posters are Key!
If you should lose a dog or cat, switching from using small 8 1/2 X 11 pieces of paper (lost pet flyers) to post in the neighborhood and instead creating large, neon posters is THE BEST tactic that you can use to generate leads! You can still create those small white flyers, but use those for handing out to people, posting on bulletin boards, and even leaving on neighbor’s porches. Posting large, neon posters at major intersections near where your pet escaped is the #1 recovery method that we recommend for lost dogs. These posters help with cat recoveries, but really when you post them within your immediate neighborhood.
Neon posters are what helped Margie Braster from Port Angeles, WA recover her dog Odie. A few years ago a July 3rd, Odie escaped from Margie’s parked car while she was visiting a sick relative at the VA hospital in Seattle. She was devastated to discover that Odie was lost, especially since she lived in Port Angeles, a good 3-hour drive from the Seattle neighborhood where Odie escaped. When I talked with her, Margie was crying. I could tell that she had lost all hope. After all, how could Odie have survived the barrage of 4th of July fireworks? He was in a high-traffic area and could have ran for miles. Since his escape wasn’t witnessed, how would Margie know which direction to search? And how could Margie possibly find Odie when she lived so far away?
Thank goodness for lost pet recovery volunteers! A volunteer from our Missing Animal Response Network helped Margie put up neon LOST DOG posters on July 5th and, by the next afternoon, Margie had Odie in her arms! Odie had been hiding under a bush in a side yard of a house for three days. This house was located 7 miles from where he escaped from Margie’s car. The homeowner was not a dog person. Although they knew that a dog was now living under a bush in their yard, they were afraid of Odie because he growled at them each time they went into their yard. Like many other non-animal people, they were not familiar with animal shelter operations and just didn’t know who to call or what to do. Until they drove to work on July 6th and saw one of Margie’s neon posters! That homeowner called Margie. She was able to drive the 3-hours where she found Odie still hiding in the bushes, thirsty and hungry and glad to be in Margie’s arms again.
One important point I should make is that although the poster that Margie is holding (in the photo above) says REWARD, we actually no longer recommend that you offer a reward for a lost dog as it often promotes the CHASING of a dog by well-meaning rescuers. I plan to blog here in my Substack next week about the topic of rewards.
For detailed instructions on how to create giant, neon posters and a link to a video about “Inattentional Blindness” (the neuroscience behind why posters need to be giant, neon, and contain very few words in large letters) can be found on the Missing Animal Response Network’s website under the LOST PET HELP NEON POSTERS tab.
Recovery Tip: Intersection Alerts can also be Effective
Another effective recovery method for lost dogs is to conduct what we call an “Intersection Alert.” This is where you have four volunteers stand on a street corner at a major intersection near where a dog escaped (or was last spotted) and you sign twirl with neon LOST DOG signs.
Intersection Alerts are even more effective at attracting attention from people driving by because just like posting a sign (on the side of a road) about tax services, people driving by just likely won’t notice the sign. But when you dress up in a green, Statue of Liberty costume and wave that same tax services sign around, PEOPLE WILL NOTICE! Although we don’t actually recommend that you dress up in a costume, we have heard of one person who dressed in a giant cat costume, stood at an intersection with a giant lost cat sign, and they got their cat back! And in Los Angeles, a young woman who wore her bikini and stilettos, stood on a street corner, and held her LOST CHIHUAHUA sign. As you can imagine, she attracted A LOT of attention and she got her dog back!
An example of another successful Intersection Alert is the case of a missing Chihuahua named Sukhi, a dog who ran off (on a July 3rd) in Seattle after panicked by fireworks. On July 5th, his guardians Cristien and Ajax reached out for help. Two volunteers, along with Cristien and Ajax, conducted an Intersection Alert near Sukhi’s escape point. Within FIFTEEN MINUTES, the woman who had found Sukhi (two days prior) drove through the intersection! She pulled up next to Cristien and said, “I have your dog, he’s in my garage.” Within twenty minutes, Sukhi was back home where he belonged!
One cautionary note. Check your local city regulations as some communities have banned sign twirlers from waving signs on street corners. Oh, and we know that Chihuahua is NOT spelled “CHIWAWA” like we put on our poster. We did that because the proper spelling was too long and would have reduced the size of the lettering. The text on your poster inserts need to be BIG (100 size font) to be readable by passersby. Besides, most non-dog people don’t know the proper spelling of “Chihuahua” but they know what one looks like!
Please Share our Memes on Facebook
We’ve posted both of the memes (above) on the Missing Animal Response Network’s Faceook page and we ask that you’d share these within your network.
Every summer, in spite of educating pet guardians, we see an overwhelming number of dogs and cats bolt and go missing due to fireworks. Please listen to (and share!) our advice and don’t let it be one yours!
Very timely advise. Hopefully it will be well received. Thank you!
I cannot "heart" this enough! My feelings exactly! (Shakes fist at "Arizona culture")...