Tuesday is July Fourth, the worst day of any dog’s year, and Stephen Colbert took the opportunity to let one lucky mutt speak for himself in a public service announcement about fireworks. It’s not the kind of PSA that explains how to avoid blowing your own fingers off; dogs don’t have a lot of sympathy for woes caused by opposable thumbs. Instead, Colbert’s spokesdog simply wants to explain that when your dog runs under the couch, there’s more going on in his or her canine brain than a fear of loud noises. Specifically, dogs are on edge this year about military escalation in North Korea.
The video does a great job of portraying a dog’s emotional landscape on the Fourth of July; “Our tongues begin to salivate like Pavlov’s dog if he were conditioned to crave his own mortality” is perfect. But anyone who’s helped a dog survive their annual Dogmaggedon will chuckle at the spokesdog’s final suggestion of soothing them with a chew toy. If Fourth of July terrors could be soothed by chewing on things, dog scientists would have figured it out by now: It’s always the first thing they try.
