From: pastor@prc.unisys.com (Jon Pastor)
Subject: Re: An Anti-Dog Trend Coming?
Organization: not much...
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 18:38:04 GMT

I own a dog.  I like dogs.  I am a responsible owner: I train my dog (Katie
says: "Yeah, right..."), I clean up after my dog, and I keep my dog under
control.  I think that I ought to be able to bring her anywhere, including the
fenced park across the street and the beach at Cape Cod.

But...

Many -- perhaps most -- people are pretty irresponsible about their pets.  I
live in a nice suburb of Philadelphia, and of the seven or so dogs on the
block, I would say that only 3 of the owners qualify as even semi-responsible.
That leaves over 50% of them who let their dogs urinate in people's gardens,
leave piles of dog turds next to people's cars, bark all night, etc.

Now, if I were a landlord, I'd be loth to permit pets, because my impression
is that at least half of all pet owners are going to be slobs.  If I owned or
controlled a park, I'd be reluctant to permit pets because at least half of
all pet owners don't clean up after their pets despite township ordinances
that say they have to.  And if I wrote the regulations for a beach, I'd assume
that over 50% of people don't clean up after their dogs, and would ban dogs to
prevent fecal coliform contamination and the threat that it poses to bathing
and shellfishing.

I'd love to write two sets of rules: one for the readers of r.p.d, and one for
my next door neighbor.  You guys know to scoop poop, and keep your dogs under
control, so you could do whatever you want.  My neighbor has never walked her
dog, it gets loose several times a week and barks at all hours of the night
*outside* her house (which is 20 feet from mine), and her side yard (which
adjoins mine) is full of feces.  I'd take her dog away from her and give it to
someone who cared about it; I sure as hell wouldn't let her take it anywhere
that belonged to me.

Unfortunately, rules aren't made for the people who'd follow them even if they
didn't exist; they're made for the people who try to disregard them anyway.  I
can't run my dog in the fenced park across the street because of my neighbor,
and there's no rational way for the people who own the park to let me do it
and forbid my neighbor to.

Face it: dogs aren't the problem, owners are the problem.  It isn't an
anti-dog trend, it's an anti-inconsiderate-cretin-owner trend.  The truth is
that an awful lot of people are totally self-centered and completely
thoughtless, and this has (IMHO) become worse and worse.  People used to do
things because they were the right thing to do; now they won't do the same
things unless you make a law about it and put a cop in a patrol car to watch
them 24 hours a day.  People think that they have "rights" that conveniently
ignore the actual rights of others.  My neighbor flat-out told me that she has
a "right" to let her dog to bark anytime he wants to; I pointed out that
exactly the opposite was true, that there is a law specifically banning this
behavior, and I had to threaten to complain to the township before she backed
down and even tried to do something she ought to have done just to be
neighborly.

So don't all get heated up about the irrational dog-hating bastards who are
persecuting you.  Get heated up about the rude, thoughtless, incompetent
pet-owners who give you a bad name and make other people (justifiably) nervous
about giving you and your dog the freedom you deserve.