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Hamilton Spectator

Owners could use some obedience training: Why do they think the rules don't apply to their dogs?
August 25, 2007
Dianne Rinehart
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 25, 2007)

Some of my best friends are bad dog owners -- not as in they own "bad dogs," but that they are "bad." Very bad!

I'm uncomfortable when they walk their dogs off-leash -- in on-leash areas. A gentle reminder doesn't deter them; the rules don't apply to their dogs.

And I'm embarrassed when they shout back at people who demand they leash their dogs, rather than apologize.

And have I mentioned humiliation? As in two separate occasions when friends insisted on walking their dogs through a cemetery, clearly marked with a no-dogs sign, and the caretakers disdainfully ordered us out. Why, you may wonder, was I the only one leaving, tail between my legs?

And then there was the shame when my girlfriend's dogs, which were running beside us, leapt up to lick and sniff a clearly terrified postal worker -- despite his and my entreaties for her to call them.

Instead, she sang out sweetly: "Gosh, don't worry, they don't bite," -- utterly insensitive to his palpable fear. I'd had enough: "Don't you understand some people are afraid of dogs?" I demanded. She stared blankly, then soothed her dogs -- not the postal worker -- before letting them loose.

And she's normally -- except when it comes to her dogs -- an exceedingly well-mannered woman, clearly one of the thousands of nice dog owners across the country whose laissez faire and entitled attitudes about their pets are increasingly alienating the rest of us, dog lovers or not.

How can they not get it when news stories about dog conflict abound?

Take this week's: Dog bites of Canada Post carriers in British Columbia were double last summer's total, and are reportedly up 50 per cent in Calgary. That doesn't bode well for total 2007 figures. Bad enough in 2006 when there were 438 dog bites reported -- 135 of which resulted in a disabling injury, with an additional 272 requiring medical aid, Canada Post says.

This news came a week after I met a postal worker who, as he asked me to leash my dog, told me he'd been bitten three times after owners told him: "Don't worry, he doesn't bite." Problem was, it wasn't my dog he wanted leashed, and I too was desperately searching for its "master" -- ha! -- as the dog leapt on me. No one in sight.

Or how about this: Faced with increasing reports of dogs biting humans -- and each other -- and terrorizing children in parks, cities across the country are spending millions to balance demands of dog owners for more off-leash areas against those of parents who want to protect their children. "Dogfights loom as city studies 10 potential off-leash areas," noted one witty headline. Sadly, it wasn't exaggerating the ferocity between the opposing groups. Not to mention the anger of taxpayers, who woke up to read about Toronto council's decision to spend another $1.5 million annually to fence more leash-free areas in parks and hire 10 new doggy enforcement officers -- even as it debates shutting libraries, pools and portions of its transit system to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, Vancouver is debating, at similarly raucous meetings, establishing fenced areas within fenced areas -- to separate little dogs from the big bullies.

What ever happened to commanding a dog to heel? Or would they need therapy after that?

Worse, according to a pal who works for Vancouver's parks board, people now compete with dogs for park space. Which do you want? Fenced-in runs for dogs, or a ball diamond for a new girls' league, or a playing field for Ultimate Frisbee teams, or plots for community gardens? Because with reduced acquisition of parkland and rising populations, there's not room and money for it all, he says.

And it's not just owners of off-leash dogs causing consternation. On crowded city sidewalks owners stroll on one side, while their dogs sniff along the other -- and the leash stretches between them. Pedestrians hurrying from either direction must ask permission to pass -- or step into oncoming traffic.

And this week, as I fled down a stairwell during a fire alarm, I was trapped behind a woman who stopped leisurely at each floor to let her dog sniff around, blocking the rest of us behind her dog's leash. "He likes to sniff," she told me -- as in: You'll just have to be patient. A rumbling of discontent behind me signalled she might want to rethink her attitude, at which point she reluctantly reeled him in, inviting the rest of us to pass -- rather than hurry him up.

So let's see: Increased incidents of dogs biting people and other dogs, increased expenses to fence off-leash areas, increased expenses for bylaw enforcement, loss of park space for people -- and we haven't even reached the expensive nightmare of dealing with all the bagged doggy do-do left in city garbage containers.

Oh, and before you send your hate mail, I love dogs.

Too bad they can't send their masters to obedience school.

Dianne Rinehart is a Toronto-based writer and editor from Hamilton who has worked as a correspondent in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Moscow.