11-03-2010, 07:13 PM
22
Re: Stricter dog controls
[QUOTE=dandysmom;46458]
Originally Posted by Wanda
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In what context "leash laws" Dandysmom?[/QUOTEuDogs must be on leash except in designated dog parks in the City.
I am just about to go to my local council meeting with some other dog walkers, as they are once again trying to stop dogs off lead in our local, one and only Park. They tried this two years ago, and we managed to beat them, so off we go again.
Can I just say that we have had no problems with dogs in the Park, except the normal - dog poo! As Claireanddaisy said, the minority spoiling everything for the majority. And to be quite honest, those people who do not pick up after their dogs when they are running free, are not going to have a sudden change of heart and start picking up because the dog is on a lead.
I am getting quite sick and tired of this now - you are regarded as a reckless criminal if you own a dog nowadays, while people who do commit crimes get away with it.
11-03-2010, 07:14 PM
23
Re: Stricter dog controls
Originally Posted by claireandaisy
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Just re-read the first post. Our Council is very anti-dog and there are very few open spaces. Consequently I have to get a train out of the area to walk my dogs every day. The idea that this council would be able to tell me how many and what breed / size of dog I could keep horrifies me.
11-03-2010, 09:27 PM
24
Re: Stricter dog controls
Here in Washington we have quite a few dog parks that are fenced off with ample refuse containers; some offer free bags for scooping also. And the responsible owners like you would make a scene at someone not scooping. Pity that the minority spoil it for everyone else.
11-03-2010, 11:58 PM
26
Re: Stricter dog controls
Off topic I know but people are getting outraged at the lack of response from the police who do nothing or make further inquiries about reported yobbish lads, . . folks know who they are and give the police names etc but nothing is done, . . why did the councils bring in the ASBO laws if they won't use them.
12-03-2010, 09:19 AM
27
Re: Stricter dog controls
I see they've scrapped that idea, if they can't enforce the dangerous dog act how could they enforce this. It would be a nightmare walking the dogs, if one jumped up would they claim on the insurance? I can't see how they ever thought it would work. Your dog bit me we'd better exchange addresses, yeah come close and get it then.
12-03-2010, 03:04 PM
28
Re: Stricter dog controls
I thought you might enjoy Jeremy Clarkson`s view on the proposed legislation (writing in the Times) - well, it made me laughWhat a daft way to stop your spaniel eating the milkman
Jeremy Clarkson
As we know, one man once got on one plane in a pair of exploding hiking boots and as a result everyone else in the entire world is now forced to strip naked at airports and hand over their toiletries to a man in a high-visibility jacket.
In other words, the behaviour of one man has skewed the concept of everyday life for everyone else. And we are seeing this all the time.
Last month a Birmingham couple pleaded guilty to starving their supposedly home-schooled daughter to death. Now, of course, there are calls for parents who choose to educate their children at home to be monitored on an hourly basis by people from the “care” industry, and possibly to have their toiletries confiscated.
Then we have calls to ban sexually provocative pop videos from the television until 9pm and put Loaded magazine on the top shelf. Will this prevent teenage boys from seeing girls’ breasts? Well, whoever thinks it will has plainly never heard of the internet.
We see the same sort of overreaction to paedophilia. Just because one man in your town likes to watch schoolgirls playing netball, you must apply for a licence if you wish to take a friend’s kids to school in the morning. And I now run the risk of having my camera impounded by the police if I take pictures of my children playing on the beach.
Likewise, if I decide to take a picture of St Paul’s Cathedral I will be hurled to the ground by anti-terrorist officers and possibly shot six times in the back of the head — just because one person in Bradford once made a speech about the infidel.
We seem to have lost sight of the fact that throughout history 90% of people have behaved quite normally 90% of the time. Agatha Christie, for instance, was home-schooled and at no point was she forced to eat breadcrumbs from her neighbour’s bird table.
Of course, at the extremes, you have 5% who are goodie-goodies and who become vicars, and 5% who build exploding hiking shoes and starve their children to death.
It’s this oddball 5% that is targeted by the tidal wave of legislation. But making it more difficult to teach your children at home will not stop kids being mistreated.
It just changes the pattern of everyday life for everyone else. This is what drives me mad.
We now think it’s normal behaviour to take off our clothes at an airport. But it isn’t. Nor is it normal to stand outside in the rain to have a cigarette or to do 30mph on a dual carriageway when it’s the middle of the night and everyone else is in bed. It’s stupid.
And last week the stupidity made yet another lunge into the fabric of society with the news that government ministers were considering new laws that would force everyone to take a test before they were allowed to keep a dog.
No, really. Because one dog once ate one child, some hopeless little twerp from the department of dogs had to think of something sincere to say on the steps of the coroner’s court. Inevitably, they will have argued that the current law is “not fit for purpose”, whatever that means, and that “steps must be taken to ensure this never happens again”.
The steps being considered mean that every dog owner in the land will have to fit their pet with a microchip so that its whereabouts can be determined from dog-spotting spy-in-the-sky drones, and that before being allowed to take delivery of a puppy, people will have to sit an exam similar to the driving theory test. The cost could reach £60, and on top of this you will need compulsory third-party insurance in case your spaniel eats the milkman.
So to ensure that someone in the north called Mick doesn’t shove his pit bull into a primary school playground to calm it down, I will now have to computerise my labradoodle and answer a lot of damn fool questions about when my dog should be on a lead.
In other words, the normality of dog ownership will be skewed. Instead of spending your free time with your pooches, throwing balls or tickling them under the chin, you will be forced to provide tea and biscuits for someone from the department of dogs while he inspects your cupboard under the stairs for evidence that they’ve eaten the cleaning lady.
This will achieve nothing good. It will ruin the enjoyment of dog ownership for millions, it will result in thousands of abandoned dogs, as people realise they can’t afford the insurance, and yet it will make no difference to men in the north called Mick, who will continue to tattoo their dogs with gothic symbols of hate.
What good did all the airport legislation achieve? None. It simply means that you and I now must get to the airport six years before the plane is due to leave and arrive at the other end with yellow teeth, smelly armpits and no nail file. Did it prevent a chap from getting on board with exploding underpants? No, it did not.
Happily, however, I have a solution to the problem, a way that normal human behaviour can be preserved. It’s simple. We must start to accept that 5% of the population at any given time is bonkers. There are no steps to be taken to stamp this out and no lessons to be learnt when a man with a beard boards a plane with an exploding dog.
Government officials who are questioned on the steps of coroner’s courts must be reminded of this before they speak. So that instead of saying the current law is “not fit for purpose” and that something must be done, they familiarise themselves with an expression that sums up the situation rather better: “Shit happens.”
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