Do you love dogs? I love dogs, my wife and I have three, two girls and a boy, they are greyhounds. We think greyhounds are very special dogs because of all the terrible things that happen to them because of the racing industry, but we love all dogs just the same, not just greyhounds. Have you got a dog? If you have do you love him / her very much? Dogs give you their whole being unconditionally, and don't ask for anything more than food and water and a warm place to sleep in return. Every time you look into their beautiful eyes you see love without question there.
Can you imagine hurting a dog? Suppose you were to take a stick and start to beat your dog. Look into her eyes as you do it, see how they change from that look of love and trust to one of questioning and fear. Why are you doing this? What have I done wrong? Then she starts to cry in pain as you continue to hit her and she tries to get away from you, to find somewhere she can hide and protect her vulnerable body. She has no rights like you have, she is your dog and you can do whatever you like with her, no one will know anyway, no one will come to her rescue. Her cries are terrible now but you don't care, for some strange reason you get some kind of pleasure by making her suffer and cry.
I know most people will be horrified when they read that last paragraph, you would never do something like that would you? But millions of people do the equivalent of exactly that every November 5th in Great Britain. Fireworks that you enjoy so much are causing pain to thousands, even millions of beautiful, trusting dogs just as much as if you were beating them with a hard stick. More so really because this pain is hurting their whole being, not just their body.
One of our dogs doesn't react quite so badly to fireworks, she just curls up and tries to ignore the noises, but the other two are almost driven insane. Their hearts are beating wildly and we worry that they might have a heart attack. Their eyes are filled with fear and they look to us to protect them and make this terrible noise stop, but we are unable to help them and they don't understand that, they think we have stopped loving them because we are not doing anything to protect them, and that makes them wonder what they have done wrong to make us turn away from them, and so it goes on.
There are two types of people who will read this letter, type one is those who don't know how much suffering fireworks cause to dogs, type two is those who don't care. If you are type two I have nothing more to say to you, there is nothing I or anyone else can say until you develop some degree of empathy and compassion. If you are type one I am asking you not to buy fireworks and not to go to any fireworks party, not even the ones organised by the council or some other official persons, they cause just as much suffering as the others. If you will do that, then in a short time this stupidity every year will die out through lack of interest. It's the only way you can help poor, defenceless dogs, the government will never do anything to ban fireworks because they make too much money from the sale of them, and they are afraid of loosing votes from the type two people who support this suffering. Only you can help, don't buy fireworks, don't support fireworks displays and finally, but very importantly, please pass this letter on to as many people as you can. Post it on your Facebook page and any other social media that you may belong to. Print it off and give it out in the street. Display it in shop windows. Do anything but please, don't just do nothing.
John Ratcliffe.