Dogs on the Loose

If you are a dog lover don't read this. Tend to your dogs instead: Train them, restrain them, kennel them. But don't let them run loose in my neighborhood or backyard--unless you don't mind a beaten dog with fear in his heart and a permanent whimper in his voice. Not that I dislike dogs. Not at all. Any of my friends will tell you that I have been known to pat even big dogs quite affectionately and pet puppies of all kinds. What I dislike is what unleashed dogs do. Their habit of marking their romping trails and leaving a mess for bare feet on a lawn is bad enough. Even worse, they can be a menace. For dogs on the loose are a serious nuisance because they terrorize people, create traffic hazards, and damage gardens.

Although barking dogs may not bite, they can scare you half to death. I don't know which is worse, the little yappers or the big barkers. If you're riding a bicycle the yappers are mostly a nuisance, though they are threatening enough to force you to zigzag dangerously on the street. It is a brave cyclist who can ignore the barker whose flashing teeth are nipping at the handle bars. I have seen school children panic on their bicycles when a barker leaps out at them, forcing them to turn wildly to avoid the beast and sometimes even causing a youngster to fall onto the road. Or suppose you are walking at night and one of the yappers rushes out, snapping and snarling only inches away from your heels. I tend to freeze in my steps, cuss quite a bit, and wish I had a big stick. I don't think I'd actually beat the creature, but I sure would like to.

Both yappers and barkers are traffic hazards because motorists and cyclists and pedestrians, conditioned by dog-lovers to think of these brutes as people, automatically react to protect them. Just watch a jaywalking dog saunter across a busy highway in some suburban town. Cars swerve, brakes screech, accidents occur. The unsuspecting driver thinks the dog is patiently waiting for a break in the traffic, or for a light to turn green, perhaps. Then without warning manÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s best friend heads across. The sickening thud of flesh against metal is a sound that will haunt any driver for weeks-if he escapes traffic in the adjoining lane as he tries unthinkingly to avoid the dog. Equally hazardous are those dogs that dart onto the road they think they own, barking at everything rolling by. Once a little yapper so worried