Our dog has become very anxious about recent thunderstorms. She gets nervous and barks, something I try to discourage. Petting to try to comfort her seems to help, but only works if she will stay near one of us.

Over the last few days, we’ve heard random firecrackers in the neighborhood. At night, these seem to be particularly unsettling for her. And having a barking dog in the house in the middle of the night is unsettling for us. It’s not just the pops and booms, but the bright flashes from lightning that get to her. With a dog’s enhanced hearing — at least far better than mine — I can imagine that the noises from both thunder and fireworks have an enormous effect on more sensitive ears. Also, the bright flashes of light would be troubling, indeed, if you had no framework to explain them.

I suppose I would bark, too.

Our house is about a block from the Colorado School of Mines stadium, and every year that’s where any fireworks’ celebrations are based. The annual New Year’s fireworks are muted since all the windows are closed and we stay inside, but the 4^th of July celebration is nearly directly overhead and the windows are usually wide open. Twenty or thirty years ago, we would often schedule an outdoor party to eat, drink, make homemade ice cream and enjoy the fireworks with as many friends as could come. There was loud music from the park across the creek or the stadium up by the school. We’d lie on blankets in the back yard or stretch out in the lawn furniture and watch the show.

The fireworks were visually spectacular given how close we were. However, being near a mining school, the closing act generally consisted of the quick serial detonation of fifty or a hundred sticks of dynamite strung across one side of the football field. That was pretty impressive — if not overpowering! You could feel it in the pit of your stomach. By then, pets would have retreated into the house, but sometimes we’d have to comfort a dog or two, and occasionally a sensitive guest who had disregarded our earlier suggestion to insert earplugs. Cats would retreat under a bed somewhere and stay there until it was quieter. Of course, the fireworks would continue intermittently through the rest of the night — by individuals and by the clean-up team that would set off any fireworks from the official show that had failed to explode.

I remember as a kid, fireworks were pretty special and the lore around them was gruesome. One of our uncles had lost a couple of fingertips to some kind of firecracker. In addition, there was the possibly apocryphal story of someone, maybe the same uncle(?), who was dared to put a lit firecracker in his mouth. The subsequent explosion was supposedly the reason for his buck teeth.

I’ll also note that the regulation of fireworks may have been more lax in those days, and the explosiveness of some fireworks was pretty substantial. Lots of kids had access to them and they became tools of terror in the wrong hands.

These family tales and others made me resistant to playing with fireworks very much, so I was generally limited to the Roman candles and sparklers. My brother was eager to light and throw the firecrackers and always tried to get me to have a Roman candle duel until interrupted by our father. A firecracker under a can was entertaining, and foreshadowed the subsequent Cape Canaveral space shots. One of the older boys at the end of the block occasionally fired a bottle rocket down amongst the kids playing in their yards, but that was usually quickly curtailed.

Needless to say, my current interaction with fireworks is limited to observation and dog comforting. Soon, we’ll be treated to an overhead show of explosions and sparkles across the sky. It is a glorious event, and greatly enjoyed by all of us, except, of course, our dog and cats.

Happy Fourth of July!