How many bylaws could a bylaw breaker break if a bylaw breaker broke bylaws? I may sound like Citizen Super Duper with this column, which is not my goal, but there are a couple of bylaws that are broken on a regular basis by a significant number of people that stick in my craw.
If your dog is not fixed, altered, or otherwise made gender neutral, the required licence for your poocheroo is $30. If you have wisely gotten your dog spayed or neutered that fee drops to $10 to $15 per dog depending where you live on the Coast. If you are over the age of 65, the price in either category drops 50 per cent making this a painless and easy to follow a bylaw that can save your dog's life in the end, helping to reunite you if it gets lost.
The towns have provided dog owners with poop bag boxes that you see everywhere you walk so you can adhere to the other bylaw that states you can be fined $50 to $100 for not picking up excrement. To keep it fun while you're gripping and grinning that warm baggie, you could borrow our family term for it. The "PPP" or puppy poop patrol. If you are not running a kennel or breeding with an operator's licence you are allowed up to two dogs on your property. Two. Not four or three little ones whose combined weight is two pounds.
And please, can we talk about leashes. They were created with safety in mind. Safety for you, your dog, other dogs and other people. There are designated areas where your canine companion can run its heart out unencumbered. Let me relate a story as to why I think it is so important that dogs are leashed in leashed areas. I had possibly the world's most gentle of dogs, a black lab-border collie mix named Scout. I took her on leash into a garage sale once and the woman of the house was frightened to the point of freezing. I apologized and left the garage.
Later, she came to the edge of the driveway and said she was sorry for reacting the way she had. As a child in war torn Poland, she said the Nazi soldiers would wait for the children to come out of school, give them a head start home and then release their German shepherds to chase them. She said they would run terrified for their lives and get inside the gate of their yard just as the dogs reached it snapping and barking.
This is an extreme case, but I firmly believe it is not up to us dog owners to impose our animals on other people no matter how great we think they are or how little they may be. You do not know the history of the person coming towards you on the walking path.
You also don't know the history of other dogs coming towards you on that path.
My dog was rescued from a shelter and has been attacked by other dogs and is now unsure about making new furry friends. When I leave the house on a walk my goal is to have fun and set her up for success every time. The fear that runs through us both when an off-leash dog in a leashed area approaches us is immeasurable and unfair. Those of us with dogs who are works in progress have a right to spaces where we can walk stress-free.
I guess I interpret bylaws as a manual for mutual community respect and though I am not perfect either, I think it is important for us all to do our best to be aware of and follow the bylaws that were created for good reason.
