Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

Don't be fooled by the ti­tle of to­day's ar­ti­cle. Those are me­ows and howls not of hap­pi­ness, but of fear and dis­tress. Christ­mas and the hol­i­days con­trive a sea­son of peace, joy, kind­ness, good­will and Chris­t­ian love for most of us hu­man be­ings; but for our pets at home, this sea­son usu­al­ly spells im­pend­ing doom as the night sky dark­ens pre­dict­ing the ar­rival of the un­pre­dictable big bangs and flash­es of light that scare them out of their wits. Fire­works, fire­crack­ers, fire rock­ets, scratch bombs, bam­boo burst­ing; many dif­fer­ent names, one com­mon (of­ten neg­a­tive) ef­fect on an­i­mals. Even you and I have at times been star­tled by the sud­den, over­whelm­ing noise and smoke that her­alds a py­rotech­nic dis­play but we un­der­stand what is hap­pen­ing, and we are ful­ly aware that we will not be harmed. An­i­mals do not know this.

It is rare for fire­works to be man­u­fac­tured in Trinidad and To­ba­go-most are im­port­ed. Any­one wish­ing to man­u­fac­ture or keep any ex­plo­sive for the pur­pose of mak­ing fire­works must ap­ply to the Mag­is­trate of his dis­trict for an an­nu­al li­cence un­der the Ex­plo­sives (Man­u­fac­ture of Fire­works) Or­der 1951. Ac­cord­ing to the Ex­plo­sives Act of 1907; Chap­ter 16:02, Sec­tion 35 (last amend­ed 1994) the im­por­ta­tion of fire­works is pro­hib­it­ed un­less a li­cence is first ob­tained from the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cers (un­der the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise-Sec­tion 43 of this Act) are re­spon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing the im­por­ta­tion of fire­works by hav­ing the pow­er to in­spect and ex­am­ine at any time, any wharf, ve­hi­cle or ves­sel of the im­porter of ex­plo­sives and seize, re­move and de­tain it if the im­porter can­not pro­duce the re­quired li­cence. The penal­ties for vi­o­la­tions of the above Or­der and Act in­clude fines of up to $20,000 or im­pris­on­ment for 10 years.

Once these items are legal­ly in the coun­try, we now ad­dress the is­sue of le­gal sale. Again, an an­nu­al li­cence must be ap­plied for from the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty un­der the Ex­plo­sives Act to sell by whole­sale (cost of li­cence is $500; penal­ty of $2,000) or by re­tail (cost of li­cence is $250; penal­ty of $1,000). It is il­le­gal to sell fire­works to any child un­der 16 years old. Any cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go should re­quest to view the li­cence of the deal­er be­fore mak­ing a pur­chase to en­sure that you are not sup­port­ing the il­le­gal trade. Most cit­i­zens do not re­alise that it is il­le­gal to set off fire­works with­in or out­side of any town in Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out writ­ten per­mis­sion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Sec­tions 99-100 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act of 1921; Chap­ter 11:02 (last amend­ed 2007) in­clude: Sec­tion 99 (1) Ex­cept as pre­scribed by Reg­u­la­tions un­der this Act, any per­son who throws, casts, sets fire to, or lets off any fire­works with­in any town is li­able to a fine of one thou­sand dol­lars.

Sec­tion 99 (2) In this sec­tion and in sec­tions 100 and 101, "town" in­cludes the City of Port-of-Spain, the City of San Fer­nan­do, and the Bor­ough of Ari­ma, and every part of the area with­in two miles of the bound­aries of such City, or of ei­ther of such Bor­oughs, and al­so any place or area de­clared by the Min­is­ter, by Or­der, to be a town or to be deemed to be in­clud­ed with­in a town for the pur­pos­es of the said sec­tions. Sec­tion 100. Any per­son who throws, casts, sets fire to, or lets off any fire­works in­to, in, or up­on any street not be­ing in any town, or in­to, in, or up­on any place be­ing with­in six­ty feet of the cen­tre of any such street, is li­able to a fine of four hun­dred dol­lars. Are any of the above, not to men­tion out­dat­ed, laws be­ing en­forced? Apart from break­ing the law, what about con­sid­er­a­tion for neigh­bours when their peace of mind is rude­ly dis­turbed, the ef­fects on the hear­ing of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, the heart risk to the el­der­ly, smoke in­hala­tion, and the ter­ror in­stilled in the an­i­mals?

Own­ers who do not know any bet­ter use a quick-fix to deal with their pet's anx­i­ety by ask­ing their vet­eri­nar­i­an to pre­scribe a seda­tive. How­ev­er, many of these drugs do not have anx­i­olyt­ic prop­er­ties and will there­fore not al­ter the im­pact of an event un­less the an­i­mal is ren­dered un­con­scious through­out it. It is be­lieved that im­mo­bil­is­ing an an­i­mal whilst leav­ing it aware of-and emo­tion­al­ly re­spon­sive to-a pho­bic event may in­ten­si­fy the ex­pe­ri­ence and lead to wors­en­ing of the pho­bia in the fu­ture. The us­es of pheromones and be­hav­iour­al ther­a­py through de­sen­si­ti­sa­tion and counter-con­di­tion­ing have been shown to be safe and ef­fec­tive meth­ods for the treat­ment of fears and pho­bias of fire­works. But you are the best source of com­fort for your beloved pet. In next week's ar­ti­cle we will dis­cuss the treat­ment of such pho­bias in greater de­tail. If you need help deal­ing with a pho­bic an­i­mal dur­ing the fire­works or thun­der­storm sea­son, con­tact your lo­cal an­i­mal be­hav­iourist.

This ar­ti­cle is copy­right to Best Pets An­i­mal Be­hav­iour Ser­vice. For fur­ther in­fo con­tact

Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath at 689-8113.