The dog days of summer...

I hate dogs.

Perhaps I should clarify that statement.

I hate dog owners.  Specifically, the owners who through their own ignorance. allow their dogs to run through both the owners and the dog’s lives unfettered by simple obedience commands.

Come.  Sit. Stay.

It was Columbus Day, 2007.  I had the day off, and the kids were in school. What else should I do but get a ride in.  Not one of my standard routes.  No.  I loaded the bike in the truck, and drove out to the Section 16 trail head.  I’d never ridden there, and I wanted to see what there was to see.  When I got to the parking lot, I got out, unloaded the bike and checked it over.  There were about three or four other cars, but it didn’t look too crowded – not to many hiker-conflicts, I thought to myself.  I shifted into my granny gear, and started pedaling.  I think I may have run into a couple coming down the trail – I stopped and exchanged pleasantries – and went on my merry way. 
I couldn’t have been more than a half mile into the trail when I heard them.  Coming up the trail were two dogs.  I could hear the owners calling after them, but the dogs were more interested in smelling the smell of smelly smells.  I turned to see where they were, and that’s when they saw me.  One dog was older, a Golden Lab I think.  Its grey beard reminded me of my own aging Black Lab.  The other dog was younger – a collie of some sort.  That’s the one that started barking at me.  “No big deal – dogs bark”, I thought.  At about the same time, the older one started circling behind me.  It reminded me of a show I’d seen on Animal Planet, showing the way a wolf pack would hunt. This however was not a nature documentary.  I had visions of the older one nipping my leg to get my attention – then the younger one would jump, snarling toward my neck.   All this time I was keeping my bike between the young dog and me.  If he was going to attack, he was going to get a mouth full of Gary Fisher!

While this whole episode probably lasted no more than thirty seconds, it seemed like an eternity.  I really don’t think the dogs were going to attack me.  Dogs do what they do because they are dogs.  Finally, the owners showed up.  “Don’t worry, they don’t bite”.  It was little consolation.  They collected their dogs – the younger one was a little reluctant to leave his prey – and with leashes in hand (but not on the dogs), they headed up the trail.  The man threw a cursory “sorry” my way for my trouble.  I headed back down to my truck, and I haven’t been to that trail since. 

Why write about this now?  Tonight while I was walking my Husky-we-think-daddy-was-a-German-Shepherd-mix, two dogs attacked me.  They busted right through a door and came after me.  Specifically, they came after my dog.  I managed to make one retreat to his yard by grunting loudly at him (my wife thinks this is the funniest thing, but it works).  The second followed us out into the street, growling and barking.  The lady (I hesitate to call her the owner – I think these dogs own her) came running out, yelling “Oh, don’t worry about them – they don’t….  They….”  At this point, I was livid.  I was barking, my dog was growling and the attacking dog would have none of the lady’s protestations.  She finally got her dogs corralled.  As I pulled my dog away,  I heard the lady yelling  “After eight years of not listening…”  I left.  I thought about telling her to get her door fixed.  I though about calling the police.  I thought about spewing a couple of expletives deleted.  But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.  After being handed a ticket, or getting a stern lecture (probably more of the latter), she would still be unable to handle her animals.  The couple on Section 16 still think their animals are under control.  People on bike trails (I’ll bet walkers call them walking trails) who let their animals wander in front of bicycles don’t even consider how much a veterinarian would charge to patch up Fluffy. 

It’s not that dogs don’t have a right to roam off-leash.  But they can’t be let off leash if owners aren’t responsible enough to train their animal.  It can’t be half training, either.  “Oh, Fluffy will come when I call”.  Sure.  But will Fluffy come when she’s barking at a passing cyclist?  Dogs are animals, not people.  They don’t understand sentences.  They understand commands.

To me, the whole issue is about rights.  I have just as much right to enjoy my time doing what is enjoyable to me as the next guy.  It’s when those ‘enjoyable pastimes’ clash that we have problems.  Instead of yelling about our individual rights, maybe we should all sit back and consider how our ‘rights’, as well as our animal’s rights, impact others.  Does it matter if I never go back to Section 16?  Probably not.  Should I change my route when I walk my dog?  Maybe. Maybe I’ll start carrying a stick.  I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “Your right to swing your fist stops at the tip of my nose”.  Whoever said it sure was on to something.

Rant off.