Pet Peeves

I try to be a responsible dog owner. I don’t leave my dogs outside all day roaming the neighborhood and barking their fool heads off. We try to enforce a no barking policy after 10:00 pm and before 7:00 am. The older two dogs understand this and the puppy is slowly coming along. The two times Crunch had a late night bark fest was right before he dispatched an unlucky critter in our back yard. John is working out the fact that he shouldn’t bark at the numerous deer (aka tall rats) that roam our subdivision at night. There are a few barkers around us, but it is not really a problem. When I walk my dogs I really try to pick up after them. Either I whip out a plastic bag or I come back later to clean up. My dogs have over an acre to roam on our fenced property. When the few times they have escape (usually my fault) I quickly round up the escapee.

So I get extremely aggravated when I find enormous piles of poo by my mailbox. My dogs not go there and there is no way they could physically produce these piles. The other morning I spied the interlopers, two standard poodles. One had the audacity to enter our yard. Fortunately only one of our dogs was outside and he quickly chased the beast out. I do not want to clean up after other people’s dogs. I think this is a universal opinion. So why do people blithely send their dogs out to go on their neighbors’ lawns? It’s rude, inconsiderate and unhealthy. It results in ill will towards all dogs and their owners. Increasingly stupid and intrusive laws are the result of the behavior of a few inconsiderate louts.

I do have a good story about retaliation against one such lout.

My dogs are show dogs and they are used to a fair amount of travel. As a result they have learned to potty quickly under certain circumstances. However I haven’t really fully trained them to “go” on command. There is someone I know in passing how has trained her dogs to that extent. She has numerous dogs; I think six, of a very large breed. Her dogs are well mannered and well cared for. She would always conscientiously clean up after her dogs. At one point she noticed that on a daily basis someone’s dog was leaving a pile on her front lawn. Her own dogs were never allowed out front so she knew it could not be her dogs. One morning she saw the dog in action. The dog was on a leash and the owner was completely unconcerned about the dog’s actions. This was too much! My friend gathered up leashes and dogs (at least four) and tailed this person to their home. Once she was sure that this was indeed the house, she marched up onto the lawn and gave the command. All her dogs promptly complied. With a flourish she wheeled her dogs about and marched home. Since then there has been no more problems from that particular dog walker.

Bottom line, fence your yard or leash your dogs and pick up after them!