Happy Doggy New Year

A friend sent me an article about dogs celebrating new year at Stockholm airport. My heart melted.

I am not a fan of fireworks. I think they can be pretty but the noise just puts me off completely. Whenever it happens, birds are blasted out of their nests and animals are terrified.

The local government of Collecchio in Italy has legislated that all fireworks in their town must be silent. This is to reduce stress to pets and wildlife. Setti Fireworks is a company that makes these silent fireworks. I wish more places did that.

We celebrate midnight on New Year’s Eve at home because the cats hate the fireworks. Dogs have it even worse because their ears are more sensitive.

Fireworks are not allowed at or near airports, so a hotel at Arlanda airport in Stockholm has a pet-and-owner New Year party where it is silent and the dogs have a great time.

This is the original article, in Swedish.

Parts of the article read:

Around 300 dogs celebrate the new year together at Arlanda. Here they can escape the explosions from the fireworks in town. Hundreds of them travel out to Arlanda with their owners. A total of around 300 dogs gather at the Clarion Hotel Arlanda to ring in the new year.

The reason is the ban on fireworks in the aircraft area. So neither dogs nor owners need worry about the stroke of twelve.’It’s about replacing that worry with happy memories for the dogs’, says hotel director Mirja Braun.

During the day the hotel arranges activities such as searching games. Later in the evening, a large banquet is laid out for both dogs and people, with a special “dog bar”.