near the crossroads at hurkisondas hospital a pariah with almond eyes painfully lumbers to a shelter when a group of boisterous men wielding a box of firecrackers gets ready to explode a laxmi bomb to mark the arrival of a procession for durga visarjan the pariah haplessly curls up behind the chipping door of a mithai shop trembling in fear and letting out stifled wails the shops salesman says the dog was scarred by a group of lumpens last diwali who knotted a string of crackers to its tail and watched the fun as it ran about panicstricken and ultimately burnt the dogs tail back and legs not every animal is subjected to the inhuman treatment the pariah suffered but it is a fact that for dogs who can hear sounds ranging from 67 hz to 45 khz the human sound range extends up to only 20 khz firecrackers can be apocalyptic rajesh vinod pawla who works for a pet ambulance says hes on call 24 hours every diwali strays are the worst affected they get so scared that they enter one anothers territory get into fights get run over by speeding cars and are targeted by cruel revellers last year we had 22 distress calls out of which 12 were major injuries from being burnt as a result of firecrackers being tied to tails some revellers dont have a heart says pawla who worked with an ngo before joining the pet ambulance a year and a half ago this year some canine lovers have mobilised themselves under a banner called the festival of kindness to help pet owners help their pets and urge mumbaikars to celebrate diwali responsibly by refraining from bursting noisy crackers apart from creating awareness in schools they have also launched a social media campaign so far 1809 people have pledged their support the campaign encourages pet owners to prepare their dogs for diwali by offering a free threeweek programme by canine behaviorists to desensitise dogs to loud noise madhavi tangella a filmmaker and canine behaviorist says the campaign came about after observing uncharacteristic responses from sarah a nineyearold guide dog who helps disturbed people overcome their trauma through animalassisted therapy sarah would be terrified during diwali and would go into a cocoon a dog that helps distressed people reach a state of tranquility goes into immense trauma herself thats when we felt that something needed to be done she says shirin merchant canine behaviorist and editor of a pet magazine who has been working with dogs for over 16 years says that reactions to loud noise vary from trembling and not eating to extreme withdrawal and recommends the free threeweek desensitisation programme to help dogs cope with three phases habituation desensitising and counterconditioningmerchant says dogs can develop resilience to the cacophony of crackers the idea is to first get the dog used to noise by slowly increasing the decibel level and then pairing the loud noise to happy things in the dogs life like eating