Don't Throw the Dog Out With the Bathwater

I probably should not admit this, but I am partial to dogs. My friends that love cats might get mad at me, but I hope that they can see past my bent and still accept me for who I am. I was attacked by a wild farm cat as a child in Iowa and I have deep psychological scars…but that is a whole ‘nother story. I am a dog lover…always have been…always will be…and I am highly partial to big dogs and bird dogs. Of all the dogs I have owned over the years, a German Shorthair named Hemmingway dredges up some of the fondest memories for me. He was both a bird chaser and loved to fish (at least hang out with me while I fished…he had a hard time holding a fly rod). He and I had one distinct difference – he liked cats…but I never held it against him. What a creature he was. And, I don’t think he held it against me.

Now that I have been “waxing poetic”, I am going to shift gears and kick into random rant mode. I had my grandkids over the other evening and we went for a short walk around the neighborhood. In the cul de sac near my house, there was one of those plastic grocery store bags that people wear as a glove when cleaning up after man’s best friend (to scoopa da poopa), so kindly filled with animal waste and tied up, AND LEFT BY THE LAMPPOST! So, I picked it up and carried it home and tossed it in my trash. A few days later, I was out for a walk and, lo and behold, what did I see but the same sight on the street at the edge of our storm sewer. I picked up that one and put it in the trash too. Now, what in the hell am I to make of this? Is this dog crap, or more aptly put, CRAPPY DOG OWNERS?! This is one of those things that really force you to downgrade your opinion of humanity. These folks were conscientious enough to scoop the poop, but despicable enough to toss that plastic bag of trash into the public domain. If I catch one of them doing it there will be hell to pay. This feisty old fart will pull out his spray-can of “whoop-ass” out and settle it the old fashioned way. I can damn guarantee you that. This random act of idiocy by a fellow pet owner is like the thief that steals your wallet, removes the cash and mails your driver’s license back to you. I just don’t get it.

The next complaint I have about these “crappy dog owners” is the genre that does not even bother to exercise and walk their pets. Getting a dog seemed like a really cool idea at the time, but, oh, what a hassle. So rather than doing the right thing, they stick their dogs out in the backyard to run around and bark. Unfortunately, these same folks seem to acquire unusually stupid (that are usually trained horribly) dogs that bark at everything (including roly-poly’s…known as sow-bugs in the Ozarks) and eventually end up with a severe case of laryngitis. It strikes me that perhaps stupid owners are attracted to stupid dogs. For crying out loud, if you want to get a dog, then train it and care for it. If you don’t want to go to those efforts, then be kind to the animal and let someone who does care take it home.

Which brings me to my closing thoughts…I really have loved my dogs over the years and have taken the best care of them that I could and if you decide to get a pet, love it and love it right. Having said that, I don’t get the trend today with buying insurance for animals, doing major surgery (hip replacements) on them, and even putting braces on the critters. It just strikes me as really, really weird. When I was a kid on the farm, when a dog was in bad shape, we did the most humane thing we could and took it out in the middle of nowhere and put it out of its misery – it was the humane thing to do. Honestly…we did it out of love. My friends that are animal rights activists are going to get really mad at me, but I think we ought to be taking care of people first…but maybe we make an exception for those crappy dog owners. You think about that…TL