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07th Nov 2024

Roy Keane wants to ban Bonfire Night because ‘it scares all the dogs’

Zoe Hodges

That’s not the only thing he’d like to ban.

Roy Keane said he wants to ban Bonfire Night in the UK because it scares dogs.

Speaking on the latest Stick to Football episode alongside Gary Neville, Jill Scott, Ian Wright and special guest David Moyes, Keane shared his views on the tradition.

As they took their seats, Scott innocently asked if anyone did anything for ‘firework night’ but was met by an angry Roy Keane who got on his high horse about the evening.

He said: “It’s the biggest pain. What’s nice about it? It scares all the dogs, it’s a waste of money.”

Keane also shared something else he’d like to ban as he continued: “I took my dog out this morning at quarter past seven and someone’s on the blower with the leaves at quarter past seven in the morning, I think it should be banned.”

Scott laughed as she asked the former United captain: “Why do you feel like you have to fix every problem in the world?”

His comments come after a dog owner from Northumberland urged caution after her dog became so spooked by fireworks that it ran away and was later killed by a train.

Michelle Kennedy and her family were left distraught after her dad, Michael, took her two Bearded Collies for a walk on Bonfire Night in 2017 but only returned with one.

Two-year-old Mida had been spooked by fireworks and was found two days later after she had sadly been hit by a train.

Kennedy said: “My dad was walking our two Bearded Collies around 5 pm on Bonfire Night.

“It was just starting to turn to twilight, so it wasn’t quite dark yet. He thought he would walk the dogs before it became dark and fireworks started.”

However, unbeknownst to the family, the nearby caravan site had begun its display early, with no warning.

Kennedy continued to recall: “The show was about 100 metres from where my dad was, and both dogs got a fright and ran away. My dad managed to get a hold of Dezzie, but lost Mida.

“After two days of searching by the whole community, she was found on the train track and had been hit by a train.”

The incident is not the first nor the last of its kind as new statistics released this week show that four in five dog owners notice significant changes in their dog’s behaviour while a third say their dog is ‘terrified’ of fireworks.

Missing pet data from Petlog, one of the UK’s largest lost and found pet databases run by The Kennel Club, also shows 81 per cent more dogs were reported missing by their owners during the two weeks of November 2023 which saw Bonfire Night and Diwali (30 October – 13 November), compared to the previous two weeks.

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