Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1918-08-23
Down With Dogs +!
In The INTERESTS Or THE WAR AND Or
FooD CONSERVATION, The GOVERNMENT
SHOULD AT ONCE Stop The Doc
ABoMINATIoN.

To the Editor Some wise and 600,
newspaper correspondents are giving fact
and figures to show that the needs of tn,
war make 1t imperative that the Govern
ment should stop the dog nuisance Of tn,
country. Herbert Hoover. the Food Ad
ministrator. should at once act on the sug
gestion. There are millions Of people max
ing sacrifices for the war and the dol
lovers should be made to make theirs. Tn,
food that dogs consume, the food that they
destroy and the food that they prevent
from being raised amounts to untold mil
lions yearly. Aside from all this. they
breed more trouble among neighbors thar
any other one thing under the sun.
The dog lover says he loves his dog, that
the dog is mans best friend, that if you
hit his dog you hit him, and that the man
who kills his dog he will kill. The great
majority Of dog lovers who essay to talk
this way are absolute liars. They club and
kick their dogs until the poor dogs make
the welkin ring with their piteous whines
and make us dog haters wish we had clubs
to belabor the dog lovers themselves. At
other times they will keep their dogs chained
Il hear them now, and at intervals through
days and nights the welkin rings again
with the cries Of these dogs for their lib
erty. Like the wife heaters. they say to
themselves:
"A dog. a woman and walnut tree
The more you beat them the better they be. "
Just at this season dogs that are loose
are running down all the young game in
the rural districts Every evening of late
they begin near my home and circle around
for mile-sleep being out Of the ques-
ton until they retire.
The Maryland dog law is farce and a
fizzle. laughed when it was made, and
! laughed when the sheep growers and
some newspapers made great calculations
on the increase in sheep raising. What is
a dollar year for dog 1t should be SIS
year for a male dog and $50 for female
dog. Let the Government put this tax on
dogs and see that it is carried out in other
guess fashion than what the State does il
and civilization will receive boost equiva-
lent to the greatest in history. People this
side of the plains can live without dogs
well enough. AS farmer, never had
one once lived in New York, near the
Connecticut line. There was not dog on
the farms or in the village and the people
were all happy and thrifty, Dogs, whis-
key and tobacco make up the happy trio
for the Southerner especially.
have had to drop the friendship Of
some Of my best friends on account Of
dogs. living, as do now. where dogs are
easy. but in other localities have merci-
fully shot and buried under grape vines
exactly SO as a matter Of self-preservation
to some Of my neighbors and myself. The
dogs laid out ranged from the five cent
mongrel Of the negro. who kept him to
protect his property, to the $50 imported
dog of the minister that tore up all the
flower beds in the vicinity, with the min
lister wholly deaf to all entreaties. A
friend tells me Of seeing hounds run blooded
mares until they lost their colts worth
$1,000 each. will myself carry to my
grave the marks Of a dogs teeth on my
face. gotten when a child while trying to
do favor to one of mans best friends. "
A dog law should mean a SIS tax. a sup
preston Of his barking. and fine Of 500
if found outside his owners place without
a muzzle.
That dogs have been useful in the Alps,
in the trenches, in Alaska and on the
plains has nothing to do with what they
are in thickly settled communties-in
these they are an abominatiOn and a
mockery to civilization.
FRANCIS b. LIVESEY.
West Friendship. Md.