Life lesson: Dogs don't like fireworks

First thing you should know is back in the day I didn’t know about dogs and fireworks, that the booms and pops freaked out many a canine.

Nobody ever told me, there hadn’t been that many dogs in my life.

Carriebelle the Dalmatian was my third dog ever.

She was a mighty fine pup, I even let her sleep on my bed.

While she and I were together we lived in exotic locales, including Amarillo, Phoenix and Bisbee, Ariz.

Carriebelle was born in Roswell and that’s where we spent our first two years together.

We were great pals. I took her with me to a lot of places.

So when the Fourth of July fireworks show was set for the fairgrounds on the south side of town I just figured I’d take Carriebelle with me.

I mean, when I pulled up in the parking lot and got to walking to where everyone was gathered to watch the show, nobody said anything about having my dog by my side on a leash and harness.

Everything changed when the first skyrocket went up and exploded in the air.

My dog freaked out.

And it didn’t help there were more explosions in the sky in rapid succession.

Carriebelle ran one way, then another.

I thought if I weighed 50 pounds less she would have dragged me through the crowd.

She weighed about 60 pounds, and she was quite set to get away from the booms in the sky.

I had to wrestle with her a bit to get a good hold on her. I thought this is probably what rodeo calf-ropers have to do to wrangle a calf.

I mean she didn’t weigh as much as a calf, but she was kicking and flailing and quite determined to get away from the fireworks.

I picked her up and I was holding her close. That seemed to calm her down.

I talked to her too.

“I sure am sorry I brought you here,” I said.

Soon I had her in the car and we were driving home.

Back then I had a job on the radio.

I mention this because the next morning I went to work playing country songs on the air, telling stories and stuff.

“Well I learned a big lesson at the July Fourth fireworks show last night: Don’t take your dog to fireworks shows,” I said after a song was finished playing. I then went on to tell the story of me and Carriebelle at the fireworks show.

As they say in the radio biz, “The phone lines lit up.”

I hadn’t seen this many calls in quite a while.

People were basically wondering how did I not know not to bring my dog to a fireworks show.

My favorite call was from a fellow who said, “We were wondering who the dumb guy was who brought his dog to a fireworks show.”

Except he didn’t call me a “dumb guy.”

He called me something else.

But it’s OK, I’d been called that before.

This time I really earned it.

Grant McGee is editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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