How to Help Street Dogs Through Diwali, and the Pets at Home

Around 9pm on Diwali, a lot of pet parents end up in the same place: on the floor, next to the bed, because that's where the dog is. Or in front of the cupboard the cat has moved into.

The fan is on full, the curtains are drawn, somebody's phone is playing rain sounds, and the festival is happening to everyone else. It's not the Diwali anyone planned. But at least your pet has a bed to be under.

The dogs on your street don't: the strays, the indies, the community dogs, whatever your colony calls them. They get the gap beneath a parked car, the stairwell of the building they guard, the shutter of the chai shop that closed early. This post is mostly about them, with a section for the dog or cat at home. None of it is complicated. Most of it just has to happen before the first cracker, not after.

Why Diwali is so hard on animals

Dogs and cats hear far more sharply than we do. A sound we'd call loud arrives much louder for them, and it comes with no warning and no explanation.

A pet at home can at least run to a room it knows. A street dog runs wherever the noise isn't. That's how dogs end up streets away from the only people who know them, or hiding somewhere a car is about to reverse out of. Birds have it no easier: the crackers go off under the trees they sleep in.

Before Diwali: how to help the street dogs you feed

If there's a dog you feed, or a whole gang of them, this is the week they need you slightly more organised than usual.

1. Get them a collar with a tag: their name and your phone number. If they bolt on Diwali night, whoever finds them can call you. It takes a pen and five minutes.
2. Feed them earlier than usual, somewhere quiet and well away from where your building lights its crackers.
3. Leave water out, somewhere sheltered they already know.
4. Find them a quiet corner: a stairwell, a garage, the covered parking. This is the week to be very nice to your RWA and your building guard.
5. Save two numbers in your phone now, not at 11pm: your nearest animal shelter, and your municipal corporation's animal helpline.
6. Put a small first-aid kit together, and keep a bucket of water by the door. It's for emergencies, and for the used sparklers.

On Diwali night

Look under your car before you drive. A scared dog squeezes into the smallest dark gap it can find, and on Diwali night that is often under a parked car.

If you're lighting crackers, do it away from where animals shelter: not near the dogs' corner, not under the trees the birds sleep in, and never near an animal shelter.

If you see someone throwing crackers at a dog, or tying them to one, it isn't a prank. Treating an animal in a way that causes it unnecessary pain or suffering is an offence under Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. You're allowed to say so, and you can report it.

If you find a dog that's hurt, lost or too frightened to move, look for a tag first and call the number on it. If there isn't one, call the shelter or helpline you saved. Go slowly with a frightened dog, even one you know.

Keeping your dog or cat calm during the crackers

Everything above is for the dogs outside. Here's the short version for the one currently on your bed.

• Walk the dog in daylight, before anything starts, and nowhere near where crackers are being lit.
• Close the windows, draw the curtains, and put music or the TV on. It won't stop the noise, but it softens it.
• Let them pick their spot. If the dog wants the bathroom and the cat wants the top of the wardrobe, that's the plan now. Keep food, water and, for the cat, the litter tray within reach of it, and don't drag anyone out.
• Stay home if you can, or make sure someone does.
• Collar and ID tag on, even indoors. Doors open a lot on Diwali.
• Keep diyas and candles well above tail height.
• If your pet panics badly every year, talk to your vet a week or two before Diwali, not on the night, and don't give them anything a vet hasn't prescribed.

A quieter Diwali

Nobody is asking you to cancel Diwali. It's the festival of lights, and the lights were never the problem: diyas, lamps, rangoli, the good sweets. Keep all of that, skip the crackers, and ask your neighbours to go quieter too.

If your colony is doing crackers anyway, a set time and a set place, away from where the dogs sleep, already helps. So does one person in the building WhatsApp group asking nicely before Diwali, rather than furiously after.

The morning after

Go and check on your street dogs. Count them. If one hasn't come back, ask around, post in the colony group, and call the shelter: a dog that bolted can turn up a long way from where it lives. Look for limping or burns too, and ask the shelter what to do before you try anything yourself.

Then check on your own pet, who has probably forgiven Diwali by lunchtime and will be asleep on your side of the bed.

Street dogs, and us

Street dogs are a big part of how India lives with animals: the colony dog, the chai-shop dog, the one who walks you to the gate and then pretends not to know you. It's why we made For The Indies, our collection with Humane World for Animals India, and why its profits go back to the dogs.

But you don't need to buy anything to help this Diwali. A tag, an early dinner and a saved phone number will do more.

Diwali and animals: quick answers