Learn me: giants sticks of dynamite idiot neighbors are blowing off.

This was my back yard about an hour ago, courtesy of the city. The show lasts about 15 minutes. You can just make out the peak of the roof on my house. These are launched about 300 yards behind me. It is awesome. 

Way more noise than the phone camera could handle. This and the 100 neighbors around me keep me from having to buy fireworks. At a guess, my neighborhood spends close to $10K on fireworks. Some of them will shoot them for hours and there will be impromptu displays for the next couple of days. I don't have a problem with it. I have a dog that doesn't appreciate it, but she'll get over it. Thunderstorms bother her more. 

aircooled said:

bobzilla said:

....Hell. I might take the .45’s out and make some America noises now just because I can. 

Probably obvious to most here, but if you do, fire it into the ground, not the air.

The terminal velocity of a bullet is still pretty high.

Really? This had to be brought up? I have a dedicated berm for this stuff. 

My friend around the way has a Great Pyranese.  He doesn’t cope well with the banging of fireworks and barks at them in a nervous and anxious way (indoors).

Our new pupper is a mutt who couldn’t have cared less about the near constant barrage that lasted until 1 am.  She just curled up and went to sleep.  Good doggo.

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Our new pupper is a mutt who couldn’t have cared less about the near constant barrage that lasted until 1 am.  She just curled up and went to sleep.  Good doggo.

Reminds me of my ex's old cat. A rescue from the streets of Trenton NJ, fireworks and other loud noises might illicit a whisker twitch as he slept.  Might.  But if a dog or another cat was anywhere on the property, he would be up like a shot to get at it, looking to draw blood.

Ransom said:

In reply to Carbon :

I agree that it should be a day of reflection, but it's clear to me that this is not what is going on around me for the most part, and spending today traveling and paying for lodging to get my dog away from the worst of it isn't "remotely inconvenient". If I had any hope that the folks lighting off mortars down the block were having a somber reflection on the realities of armed conflict, I'd be a lot less aggravated about the difficulties it creates for me.

Your closing is pretty dang insulting to someone who's going to spend more time and money getting away from the day than most folks are going to spend celebrating it. And I've got it easy compared to my dog.

Counterpoint: I berkeleying hate dogs; especially the barky ones (I know; no one has a barky dog, just like no one has a dog that bites.) I have to deal with them 365 days a year. Somehow, I’ve managed to cope. 

poopshovel again said:

Ransom said:

In reply to Carbon :

I agree that it should be a day of reflection, but it's clear to me that this is not what is going on around me for the most part, and spending today traveling and paying for lodging to get my dog away from the worst of it isn't "remotely inconvenient". If I had any hope that the folks lighting off mortars down the block were having a somber reflection on the realities of armed conflict, I'd be a lot less aggravated about the difficulties it creates for me.

Your closing is pretty dang insulting to someone who's going to spend more time and money getting away from the day than most folks are going to spend celebrating it. And I've got it easy compared to my dog.

Counterpoint: I berkeleying hate dogs; especially the barky ones (I know; no one has a barky dog, just like no one has a dog that bites.) I have to deal with them 365 days a year. Somehow, I’ve managed to cope. 

Dogs bark at about 70-80 decibels. Let’s call it 90. 

Fireworks are about 150 decibels. Let’s call it 140. 

50 decibels difference. 32 times louder. Yeah, you’ve managed to cope with an annoyance. Comparing dogs to fireworks is like comparing a scooter to an F1 car. 

Oh boy, an internet argument.

EastCoastMojo said:

Oh boy, an internet argument.

No it isn't!

AngryCorvair said:

EastCoastMojo said:

Oh boy, an internet argument.

No it isn't!

Arguments are down the hall. 

In reply to mtn :

That all sounds incredibly scientific. No arguing with real science!

In reply to Ransom: Have you ever considered anti-anxiety meds for your dog? Amitriptyline(?) helped our schitzo cat.

It could be worse. My neighborhood has been sporadically bombing each other for a few weeks. Last night it went nonstop from 9:30 to midnight.  Tonight it’s been kind of quiet.  Kind of too quiet. 

For the record, I personally love dogs, and I hate arguing on the internet (or elsewhere for that matter).

"Hard times make hard men, hard men make easy times, easy times make soft men, soft men make hard times."

 Men complaining about the celebration of easy times, earned by hard men's sacrifices seems disrespectful to me.

Alternatively, maybe I should take my own advice and be less sensitive and in the interest of not arguing on the internet I will comment no further. Hope there aren't hurt feelings, just trying to offer an alternative viewpoint. 

I haven't heard a single firework being set off since I've lived here.

I think it's the burn bans.

But as an outsider I never thought central Texas would be the haven for peace and tranquility that it turned out to be. I pictured a bunch of Yosemite Sams running around.

My house is at the edge of a smallish valley that acts as both a funnel and echo chamber for sound.

We've had somebody shooting off some VERY large fireworks since last Saturday night. About 2 or 3 a night at about 3 hour intervals. The last one was at 3:11 am today. I'm talking louder than the municipal fireworks show, which takes place at the bottom of the valley and funnels up to my house.  

I hope he's either out, or I read where some jackwagon blew himself up in the morning's paper.  

Carbon said:

For the record, I personally love dogs, and I hate arguing on the internet (or elsewhere for that matter).

 

"Hard times make hard men, hard men make easy times, easy times make soft men, soft men make hard times."

 Men complaining about the celebration of easy times, earned by hard men's sacrifices seems disrespectful to me.

Alternatively, maybe I should take my own advice and be less sensitive and in the interest of not arguing on the internet I will comment no further. Hope there aren't hurt feelings, just trying to offer an alternative viewpoint. 

Respectfully, I don’t think anyone is complaint about celebrating, I think it’s the means of celebrating that’s the issue. A municipal fireworks display is great. Lighting mortars off at 3:11 am on July 6th is disrespectful to anyone, whether a revolutionary war hero, Vietnam Vet, peace loving hippy, or family pet. 

joey48442 said:

Carbon said:

For the record, I personally love dogs, and I hate arguing on the internet (or elsewhere for that matter).

 

"Hard times make hard men, hard men make easy times, easy times make soft men, soft men make hard times."

 Men complaining about the celebration of easy times, earned by hard men's sacrifices seems disrespectful to me.

Alternatively, maybe I should take my own advice and be less sensitive and in the interest of not arguing on the internet I will comment no further. Hope there aren't hurt feelings, just trying to offer an alternative viewpoint. 

Respectfully, I don’t think anyone is complaint about celebrating, I think it’s the means of celebrating that’s the issue. A municipal fireworks display is great. Lighting mortars off at 3:11 am on July 6th is disrespectful to anyone, whether a revolutionary war hero, Vietnam Vet, peace loving hippy, or family pet. 

I don’t think anyone would argue that’s acceptable behavior. 

To me, the “Be excellent to each other” rule applies here. We did a small “display” for the kids from 8:30-9:30 ON the 4th.

I, too, still had jsck-holes in my neighborhood lighting them past midnight last night.

”DON’T YOU PEOPLE HAVE JOBS!?”

I would gladly deal with 150 dB exploaions for a week, than 50-70 dB yappy dog for 365 days a year. Just a personal preference. 

In reply to SaltyDog :

I think we’ve found your culprit.

Floating Doc said:

I hate to see dogs suffer through this, especially since there are effective options to alleviate the anxiety.

See your veterinarian about a short term antianxiety medication for your dogs with noise phobia. 

If they offer a sedative, decline the offer and find another vet. The sedative we would offer is acepromazine, or ace. It sensitizes dogs to noise, so even though they look like they aren't reacting, their anxiety is worse. I only use a sedative for dogs that are going to be in danger of hurting themselves, like jumping through a closed window.

A dog on appropriate meds should act about the same as normally, just be able to tolerate the noise better.

I always recommend a trial dose at home on a quiet day (I know, too late for that), due to the rare potential for an idiosyncratic reaction. I've only seen one, the dog seemed to get excited on the first drug, but did fine on another one.

Please, don't pull out something from your own or someone else's supply of antianxiety meds to give the dog. I know that it's already July 4th, and your veterinarian Is closed. I'm sorry I didn't offer this sooner, but I didn't see the discussion.

Here's what you can and should do, read this: Fireworks fear in pets

​​​​

Try a "thunder jacket" it has absolutely transformed my dogs (from all three trying to crawl under us, to behaving completely normally).  They work great in thunder storms too!  No medication needed 

In reply to Hungary Bill :

DUDE! Thanks. My room mate has a little dog that shakes like she's E36 M3ting razor blades when it thunders. I will most definitely tell her about this.

poopshovel again said:

In reply to Ransom: Have you ever considered anti-anxiety meds for your dog? Amitriptyline(?) helped our schitzo cat.

Yep, but thanks for the suggestion! The vet set us up with that but it had no apparent effect. We've tried silly herbal stuff, we've tried a thunder shirt... Believe me, we figured we'd run down a pretty good list of things that might work before resorting to complaining at the internet! Leaving town for loud days was several notches down our list, but we've arrived there :)

She's a lot calmer about a lot of things than she used to be. But random explosions are too occasional to get accustomed to, and too much to ignore, apparently.

I'm just glad Silverton has found enough business in people escaping the fireworks to get theirs out of the way on the 3rd and have a relatively quiet place on the 4th. It's not 100% devoid of pops and bangs, but it's a far cry from people setting off mortars three blocks over, and there's no big municipal display on the 4th.

We had someone nearby setting stuff off last night (July 7). The local big box stores must still have the stuff on sale.

My experience with the thundershirt products is that they are minimally effective, or not at all.

Interestingly, the placebo effect works on the observer, too. That's the explanation I've heard when discussing these with a behavior specialist.

It makes sense. If someone gets one for their dog, and they believe that it helps, they're going to be more relaxed. The dog will pick up on that, and could then also be less stressed.

The natural tendency is for the owner of the pet to make it worse by trying to console it. To the dog, that confirms that there's a real danger.

When I explain it to my clients, I tell them that it's as if I were to walk into the exam room and my first words to them were, "Don't worry!" Obviously, it's going to be really stressful if their veterinarian does that. 

Some of them get it, some don't.

Telling the dog that it's okay, rewarding it with extra attention, all can make it worse. 

9pm Sunday the 8th.  Currently mortars and other various and sundry fireworks and explosives going on intermittently  in the neighborhood.  A fair amount of 2AM explosions all week. Folks coming home from the bars and deciding that is the perfect time to "celebrate the USA's birthday " ?

when I get frustrated with the idiots shooting off fireworks, I console myself by remembering a two hour period of continuous gunfire surrounding the house during a visit to Tucson on New Year's Eve.

As I commented earlier in this post, at least I don't have to worry about being hit by a bullet.