Deepavali and Dogs

I live in a lively neighborhood with lots of dogs, cats, goats and hens around. My wife thinks cats are evil (or more accurately that they can "manage" life without outside help). But, according to her, dogs are innocent angels that just need to be protected.
Since I had been attacked by a dog when I was myself innocent and angelic, I had much less sympathy for dogs - and thus promoted cat welfare.
We saw some evidence for the cat tendency to "evil" the other day - near a grocery shop we found two kitten playing around. One of them was trying to attack a brinjal. The other kitty was picked up by a kid. The kid held the kitty in his hands and started petting it. The cat closed his eyes and seemed to be enjoying the whole episode.
After a couple of minutes, the kid let the cat go.
The cat sauntered off out of sight and then, started licking and cleaning wherever the kid touched. He thoroughly cleaned himself and then seemed curse the dirty human and walked away.
So, that is where cats stand with humans.
Now, Deepavali came around. The night of Deepavali I was returning back from work in an auto. Firecrackers were exploding all around.
The neighborhood dogs were getting scared as hell. I think the dogs have a short memory - they had forgotten last year's Deepavali. They thought the humans had gone crazy and started destroying the world with Lakshmi vedi. So as I entered our area, I saw that the dogs were barking their heads off. They obviously thought this would dissuade the humans from destroying the world. But none of the humans seemed to be listening.
A particulaly nasty firecracker went off - and a dog started fleeing the scene. He ran like he thought the end of the world was near - ears flattened, tail between legs.
After running for some time, he noticed that nobody else was running. The humans were just shopping as usual.
The dog seemed to realize that he was the only coward fleeing the scene. Or he began to think the crackers were exploding in his head. So he began to act brave. He slowed down. Took a casual look around - and tried to convince everyone that he was just running for the daily exercise.
Then a Oosi vedi went off next to him and then he started the crazy run again.
I reached home and the dog near my home had the same look - he was not running but he was resigned to his fate. I could see him praying for the end to be painless.
Now that Deepavali is over, the dogs are celebrating - I can hear them all night.