Festivals are intense sensory worlds – loud music, shifting lights, unfamiliar smells, crowds, heat, and long days. For us, it’s celebration. For animals, it can be overwhelming and even dangerous.
This lecture-discussion explores why music and arts festivals are rarely suitable environments for pets. We’ll look at how dogs, cats, and other companion animals experience the world through their heightened senses – especially hearing, smell and vision – and how festival settings can trigger stress and harmful reactions.
Participants will learn to recognize key stress signals and better understand the risks such events pose to animal wellbeing. If bringing a pet to a festival is unavoidable, we’ll also discuss essential preparation, responsible care during the event, and practical ways to reduce harm.
This session invites reflection on empathy and responsibility – ensuring that our freedom to celebrate does not come at the expense of those who depend on us.
Miglė Zuokaitė is a certified practicing canine-assisted therapy specialist working with animal behavior challenges. Together with her animals, she educates and raises public awareness on a variety of pet-related topics, helping people better understand and care for their companions.
Miglė’s animal family is quite large: dogs, cats, chickens, and turkeys roam freely at home, and a retired service horse has lovingly taken over the role of lawnmower. This ever-changing family shares one important thing in common – each animal has its own unique life story, and before finding their way to her, most of these stories were far from easy.
