My Dog Hated the Fourth of July

I can’t blame him

Photo by Let's go Together on Unsplash

I live in one of those Washington, DC, neighborhoods where the youngsters start early with the Fourth of July firecrackers, M-80s, cherry bombs and other assorted noisemakers. Honestly, because we also experience our share of real gunfire, it takes a refined ear to differentiate between the two. I have such an ear. Don't ask.

Technically, fireworks are illegal in the District of Columbia, but that never stopped the fireworks stands from springing up in neighborhoods close to me starting sometime in June. Hastily constructed by vendors coming into DC from nearby jurisdictions, they were here one day and gone as soon as they sold out all their wares. From what I understand, those ramshackle wooden structures may no longer be a thing, and I believe they only sold sparkling and whistling things anyway, but the youngsters always knew where to source the noisemakers. The evening of the Fourth in my neighborhood has for years sounded like a war zone.

Photo credit: Aleta Williams.

It used to drive my poor dog Cairo berserk. He would hide under the bed or cling to my feet, shivering and whimpering. The poor thing would go into a panic that lasted past the last explosion. He had to take his…