Dan Schulz

Keep Your Dog On a Leash

Saturday, June 30, 2007 11:01:31 PM

I don't care who you think you are, but if you own a dog, do yourself and the community a favor. When the dog is outside of its yard, make sure it's on a leash and that you are accompanying it.

By law, dogs are not allowed to roam the streets (and other people's yards) free, a fact that should not be lost on any dog owner. If you're wondering why I'm writing this, I just went to get the mail, only to encounter a pit bull that was wandering my side yard (near the garbage can, which has a couple bags in it, waiting for "garbage day" to arrive so they can be hauled off).

I'm 99.975% certain who the owner is; regardless of whether I am right or not, that dog just got a "get out of the pound free" card. The next time I see a dog wandering my yard, I'm calling Animal Control and having the dog carted off. Especially if it's a pit bull. That breed of dog has been responsible for more people being hospitalized (and even a few deaths around here) than just about any other breed of dog.

Frankly, I wish the breed would be banned. Especially given that they're the byproduct of a "macho tough guy" attitude that pervades certain segments of the community (ironically also being the gang bangers and drug dealers favorite breed as well, but that's another topic for another day) and are often trained to attack people (combined with their extremely powerful jaws, you practically have to snap their necks to get them off of you when they do attack).

Thankfully for me I had a partially fenced-in porch and a garbage can between me and the pit bull; otherwise I may not be writing this post right now. So do yourself a favor and don't let your pets wander the streets or in other peoples' yards. Especially in residential neighborhoods with young children present (thankfully it was dinner time and all the kids in my neighborhood were inside, eating). Someone may get hurt, and you could lose your pet (not to mention get sued).

Why does this keep happening to me?Is Windows Turning into Adware?

Comments

Unregistered user # Monday, July 9, 2007 2:39:57 AM

Dan Grossman writes: My family used to have a female German Shepherd, Nikki, until she went of old age just before I left for college. One of our neighbors down the street had some little brown dog... I don't know what the breed was, but it looked like a slightly oversized squirrel with a shorter tail. It was never, in the decade or so they had it, leashed. It roamed free, almost getting run over in the middle of the street at least once a month. One sunny Sunday afternoon, it decided to wander onto my family's yard. That day was an unlucky day for that dog when it wandered too close to the fence. It was the kind with three horizontal pieces of split wood and a metal mesh stapled to the wood, installed primarily to keep kids away from the pool when nobody was home. When Nikki saw the little dog sniffing around just outside the fence, she treated it just like any squirrel in her territory (and it was, completely, on our property): she ran full speed at the fence, and lunged under the bottom rail, bending the metal out of her way as she dove through and sunk her teeth into the unsuspecting dog. She shook it back and forth like a play toy for a few seconds, then dropped it and leisurely walked back to the fence and sat there. Unfortunately the little dog's owners were standing right on our next-door neighbor's lawn and saw it happen. They freaked out and took the dog to a vet where it somehow survived despite several broken ribs and a punctured lung. They then asked my parents to have our dog put down and to pay for the medical bills. Crazy! So if you have a dog, keep it on a leash, or a nice big dog like mine will eat it, and you'll foot the bill.

Unregistered user # Friday, July 13, 2007 7:14:33 AM

ozone88 writes: People who don't correctly control any of their pets should be locked up for animal cruelty. Completely agree with you Mr Dan Schulz

Dan Schulz # Friday, July 13, 2007 6:19:47 PM

It's not cruelty, it's neglect and possibly abandonment. It happens all the time with cats and fish (goldfish and pirahnnas mostly), but rarely with dogs.