To Hershey's Dog-Mom

[enochs-fable.livejournal.com]

If you're taking your adorable chocolate lab out for a stroll on the bike-path on a lovely Sunday afternoon, please protect your dog and other people using the path and keep him on a leash.

I witnessed an almost-accident at close range as the dog ambled from one side of the path to another, forcing a bicyclist to slam on his brakes and stop hard to avoid hitting him.

He doesn't know any better, he's just a dog, doing what dogs do. You, on the other hand, should.

Comments

[nuns.livejournal.com]

By "revoking dog licenses" I mean that people who are not responsible enough to own dogs should not be allowed to own dogs. I never said anything about euthanizing dogs or moving.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

By "revoking dog licenses" I mean that people who are not responsible enough to own dogs should not be allowed to own dogs.

So, how you intend to enforce them not being allowed to own dogs, if they already have them?

[nuns.livejournal.com]

That's a fine question, and I am sure that someone with a public policy background would be better equipped to offer solutions than I am. That doesn't change the fact that owning a pet is a privilege, and there are circumstances under which that privilege should be revoked.

If the only way to take a person's dog away is to kill the dog, then obviously that won't work. But if that's the case, there should be training required to get a dog license in the first place.

Under most circumstances, a hefty fine should do the trick. That's why I stared with "issuing tickets".

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

That's a fine question, and I am sure that someone with a public policy background would be better equipped to offer solutions than I am. That doesn't change the fact that owning a pet is a privilege, and there are circumstances under which that privilege should be revoked.

Sorry, but you proposed the solution of revoking the privilege, so, you need to come up with what your solution to it would be.

Otherwise, you're basically saying "here's this idea, I don't know how to make it work, but go for it" and dropping the mess in someone else's lap.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Well, dropping the mess into the lap of someone trained to deal with it.

But ok, I'll give it a shot. If you revoke someone's dog license, and they don't find another home for the dog, then they have an unlicensed dog. I assume there are consequences for having an unlicensed dog. Let's apply those.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Also, I bet even you don't believe that it's always bad to point out a problem that you aren't immediately equipped to solve. Or to start in on a solution, however incomplete, without being able to provide a full solution.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

I just think that people who routinely endanger their pets and the people around them through irresponsible pet-ownership should not be allowed to own pets. Do you disagree? If so, on what basis?

I was baffled by the jump from "tickets and license revocations" to "euthanasia or exile". Until I recognized it for what it was: an attempt to make ME into the cruel person, rather than the person who is willing to keep a dog that requires lots of space in a place that can't provide lots of space.

If it's cruel to force a dog to live in too-little space, then don't. But don't make me into the bad guy for expecting adherence to basic safety precautions, when those precautions actually CAN protect both the dogs and the people.

[buckturgidsen.livejournal.com]

Nuns: "I just think that people who routinely endanger their pets and the people around them through irresponsible pet-ownership should not be allowed to own pets."

Well, we certainly have no disagreement there. Two questions though: (1) how did we get from a discussion of people with unleashed dogs on the bike path to "people who routinely endanger their pets and the people around them"? That seems like quite a leap. (2) Who establishes whether a pet owner is irresponsible? Taking someone's pet away -- or forcing them to move out of town -- these are both very stiff penalties, so there would need to be a pretty iron-clad test to determine whether some threshold of irresponsibility has been exceeded. Your thoughts?

Sorry that the jump from "license revocation" to "euthanasia or exile" baffled you. I thought it was pretty obvious that if you revoke a pet license that the owner cannot continue own the pet, at least not in Somerville. I certainly wasn't trying to make you into a cruel person, I was just trying to point out that it didn't sound like you had thought through the ramifications of your comment.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

There are several stories in this discussion about people who let their dogs run free in places where those pets run in front of moving bikes etc. This endangers both the pet and the people around them. Not a leap at all, simply a reference to the subject of this discussion. Having unleashed dogs on the bike path endangers both the dogs and the other people on the path.

As for who gets to decide what's irresponsible: there are laws in place that define this. I am simply calling for those laws to be enforced.

Turns out that owning a dog without a license results in hefty fines, not euthanasia. Mentioning euthanasia was alarmist and unfair.

As for moving away: I never advocated making people move away. I advocated tickets and license revocations, in that order. You leapt right to the revocations, and started this whole discussion of forcing people out of their homes, which was also alarmist and unfair.

I never suggested that people should be forced to move away. However, if people really feel that their dog needs more free-roaming space than is available where they live, and they really DO love the dog as much as they SAY they love the dog, they should move away by choice, to provide for the basic needs of their loved one. Alternately, they could find a nice home for their loved one, with a family that can provide for its basic needs.

Instead, people simply ignore the safety regulations that call for leashing their dog, which puts the dog into situations where it can be injured or killed, situations that also endanger other people. That doesn't sound like love to me.

[buckturgidsen.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. So the city revokes my dog license but allows me to keep my now-unlicensed dog. That sounds very well thought out. And when you repeatedly said that irresponsible dog-owners shouldn't be allowed to have dogs, I see now that I should have read this as meaning "irresponsible dog-owners shouldn't be allowed to have LICENSED dogs". I get it now. Sorry to be so alarmist.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

What does the town do when people have dogs but do not have dog licenses? I presume the same thing would get done in cases where a dog license gets revoked.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

They fine them, heavily.

[nuns.livejournal.com]

Perfect. Let's do that.