Pet Owners Brace for Chinese New Year Fireworks The explosions of Lunar New Year fireworks are considered a sound of celebration and a deterrent to evil spirits. But they also are responsible for injuries and fires and cause air quality, which is already poor in many parts of China, to worsen. Perhaps the worst off are pets that can be terrified by the two-week pyrotechnic barrage and the sound of powerful detonations at almost all hours of the day. "Many concerned pet owners come with this problem," said Mary Peng, co-founder and chief executive of the International Center for Veterinary Services in Beijing. "They will be like, "My dog is scared. What can I do?" " Dogs seem to be more bothered than cats, she said, and the canine victims can be of any breed or size. "I've seen large dogs that are so frightened that they lose their bladder control, and I've seen smaller ones who just can't care less," said Ms. Peng. It's a matter of personality. Ma Yu and her husband, Du Hongnian, have an eight-year-old Pekingese, Dou Dou, in their home on the outskirts of Beijing. Dou Dou has never grown accustomed to the seasonal fireworks. "She can't sleep, and she can't stop shivering," said Ms. Ma. You just have to hold her and comfort her, although sometimes we manage to distract her with her favorite food. During the holiday season, fireworks are banned after midnight inside Beijing's Fifth Ring Road, but beyond that boundary it's a free-for-all. "People light up their fireworks right outside my building in my neighborhood, and Simba will bark like crazy and run wild," said Deng Gang of his three-year-old collie. Last year, he was frightened and ran into the wrong home and peed on my neighbor's floor, and I was so embarrassed. Some veterinarians encourage dog owners to acclimate their pets to the din by playing recordings of fireworks before the holiday. Some local clinics also sell liquids or pills with the amino acid tryptophan, which they say helps calm animals. Ms. Peng says stressed pets need enclosed safe havens where they can retreat, but shouldn't be pampered too much. "If you pay attention to your dogs when they're whining, you effectively let them train you rather than you train them," said Ms. Peng, who has a dog, two cats and a rabbit. This year Beijing has enacted new restrictions on fireworks to help prevent air quality from deteriorating to dangerous levels during the holiday. If the air is forecast to be "heavily polluted," or over 200 on the 0-500 air quality index, over the following three days, fireworks will be banned, although authorities have said they will rely on reasoning with offenders rather than punitive measures. Forecasters say air quality for northern and eastern China will be poor over the first days of the holiday period, which begins Friday. A representative of the official China Meteorological Administration suggested that local governments ban fireworks to help exacerbating conditions, the official China Daily newspaper reported. "Firecrackers and fireworks can release large amounts of toxic gas and particles such as sulfur dioxide, which will cause severe air pollution regionally," Chen Zhenlin, a China Meteorological Administration spokesman, told a press conference Tuesday, according to the China Daily. But Ms. Ma, the owner of the nervous Pekingese Dou Dou, is skeptical that the efforts to curtail fireworks will bring relief to skittish pets. "I doubt they can enforce it," she said. The police can't be everywhere.