Today's aggrevation.

Ok quick little rant for today. On my drive to work this morning (yes I do work). I saw a man walking his dog along a very busy street (parkway for those of you in 'peg city) without its leash on. Now the dog seemed to be older (not very active) and fairly well trained but I have a huge problem with this.

For starters its illegal. Your dog may be the patron saint of dogs everywhere and listen to every word that comes out of your mouth like its the Gospel, but I got news for you. Recent studies show that an adult dog that is very well trained has about the equal intelligence of a four year old human child. So I pose this question to man walking his dog off his leash. Would you take your four year old on a walk beside a very busy street during rush hour without the child equivalent of a leash? (i.e. a safety harness with tether, stroller or holding your hand?) I would hope for the sake of all humanity the answer to that would be no. So with that established dogs are still capable of doing unprecedented and unpredictable things. For example good ol' rex is walking down this street and sees a goose, deer or rabbit and decides to chase it. Chase leads into the street and boom dog is hit. I'm a lover of animals (especially dogs) so for me that is tragedy enough, but to look at it in a legal matter now you have several hundreds of dollars in potential car damage from the ensuing car accident(s) that may result, not forgetting potential human injuries or fatalities. So as a result of this I would strongly believe that this alone is the foremost reason for leash laws. Not necessarily for the protection of rex, but for the populous as a whole.

Secondly, for the consideration of other dog owners. My own personal canine companion (Maggie) is still fairly young and although she is well behaved for the most part, she lacks some discipline on a leash., which is something I am currently working with her to overcome. So for another example there is a neighbour who resides near my home that I sometimes walk by when taking Maggie out. He has a very friendly black lab who likes to watch his owner work in the garage, and the owner doesn't leash him. So when we walk by Maggie gets all excited and this lab comes charging over to her to say hello and pulls every which way to get me to walk her over to greet him. Well I'm usually on the opposite side of the street from the lab's home so the dog (with no fear I might add) runs across the street to say hello, barking his fool head off, mean while I am the one left to make sure the lab isn't hit by any oncoming cars. Then after I let them visit for a bit I try to take Maggie home. While the lab follows us, then several minutes later the owner wonders where his dog is and calls him back!! I'm sorry but even to have your dog unleashed on your property when they have full access to a busy street is negligent and could lead to the dog being injured or any of the other outcomes I mentioned above. And now your adding the possibility of my dog jumping after the lab and possibly getting hit by a car. This has happened to me twice, and although I doubt he reads my blog, I am putting him on notice one more incident of this and I will be speaking to him. If it continues after that I will be reporting him to police or to the Winnipeg Humane Society. I hate to do that because in those situations the dog is usually the one that suffers, but at the same time I'm not going to let something happen to my Maggie, (she's had a hard enough life as it is). Also this same dog has run across this street to greet others while I'm driving by causing me to have to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting him. If I were to accidentally hit him not only am I going to feel awful for hurting (or worse) a dog, but also I'll have damage on my vehicle that I'll have to pay for/deal with which isn't fair either.

On top of all of this, as much as I may not agree with them, some people are very nervous around dogs for various reasons. And as well trained as your dogs are they may approach said people on a walk to greet them, sniff them or whatever. As citizens of this city/province/country they have the right to feel safe and that trumps your desire to not leash poochie. So smarten up.

A warning in general to these people and anyone else who partakes in these behaviours. We are lucky in this neighbourhood of having an off leash dog park right in the vicinity of both of these incidents. Keep this up and it'll lead to complaints. With too many complaints the city (who owns the park and is temporarily letting us use it as a dog park) will take it away for public safety concerns. So keep being ignorant and put everyone at risk just because your too lazy to leash your dog or are trying to prove a point about how well trained your dog is and that is what will happen. You want to walk them without a leash take them to the park and keep it there.

That's all for today.