Caveat Canem

Photo by Barbara Peterson

Human behavior is widely believed to be unpredictable; people are too complex, we think. We cannot make assumptions about how people will act in a given circumstance or when they are confronted with a specific scenario. Generally it is true. There is one class of individual however that is occasionally as predictable as, say, dogs...and that is the people who own them.

Now the custodianship of dogs poses important problems. They are among the most highly evolved of vertebrates, and so they have complex central nervous systems. For that reason they are subject to many of the same psychological disorders that afflict humans, such as anxiety and depression. Because they are predatory carnivores they can inflict grievous injury and even, on occasion, death. They also produce great quantities of waste. They demonstrate affection in ways that strike many people as obnoxious, like licking, jumping about and the always mortifying leg-humping. They are also among the noisiest of pets, given to barking and howling at night, when their human counterparts have the greatest expectation for peace and quiet.

I myself am of two minds when it comes to dogs. On the one hand, they are intelligent, generally speaking loyal, and occasionally quite beautiful. On the other hand, and I am with the Muslims on this one, they are "unclean." As soon as you enter a home you know dogs live there because of the strong, disagreeable odor. And I rather dislike the canine saliva foyer bath accompanied by the lighthearted chuckle of the owner.

All things considered I like dogs but I do not own one. Of the reasons I have chosen not to have a dog, the most important one by far is the same as the reason I got a vasectomy: I want to limit my responsibilities. Dogs are almost as much responsibility as children. They consume a lot of food and they produce a similarly great quantity of my least favorite substance, excrement. I do not want to worry that my dog would bite a neighbor's child, that my dog's barking would disturb my neighbors, that my dog would dig up a neighbor's flower beds.

Too many dog owners, however, seem unfazed by the burden of responsibility for their pets. Because they love their animal and because they are accustomed to its behaviors, they seem immune to incessant barking and they sleep peacefully while their neighbors pace, wringing their hands, frantic at the prospect of a workday severely deprived of sleep. Dog owners do not want to be put upon to handle their dog's excrement, but they behave as if you should be grateful to them when their animal deposits large mounds of it in your yard. In one neighborhood where I lived, the slovenliness of dog owners affected everyone. An individual who had a lap dog got up before dawn and toileted his dog in an open field. The children who played there had be careful not to step or fall in the dozens of gooey mounds of filth. In that same neighborhood there was a beautiful walkway between two subdivisions; this path was bordered by rushes and ornamental grasses but the effect was ruined in the spring, when the warm temperatures accelerated the decomposition of hundreds of pounds of fecal matter left there during the winter. The stench made an otherwise pleasant walk a nauseating experience.

As disturbing and irritating as is the blasé of dog owners with respect to the noise and stink of their pets, there is nothing less rational than a dog owner's indifference to the potential danger of his animals to others.

Dog bite and dog attack are significant public health problems. There are a lot of data on this important issue (dogbitelaw.com references epidemiology from the CDC and some noteworthy articles from the medical literature). Almost five million people a year suffer dog bites, and nearly a million of those require medical attention. In 2010 there were 34 recorded fatalities in the US from dog attack, and whether injured or killed, the victim is usually a child. It is disturbingly common that when a dog attacks someone, the owner has been repeatedly warned about the animal getting loose and demonstrating threatening behavior. More infuriating still is the astonishment feigned by owners of dangerous breeds (Pit Bull, Rottweiler, etc.) when their pets fulfill their genetic destiny by disfiguring or killing an innocent person.

Another disturbing aspect of the problem of the dog owner is the intransigence of those in authority when they are made aware of irresponsible behavior. In many neighborhoods across the Fruited Plain, people live in fear of the Neighborhood Association, anxious that if they do not keep their lawn sufficiently neat their houses will be foreclosed on! A dog owner however can repeatedly violate rules and ordinances regarding keeping their pets leashed or enclosed, without any trepidation whatsoever; the worst that will happen is endless advisements from the neighborhood officials. On the few occasions where I myself have called attention to a neighbor's pattern of letting his animals wander freely, not only unrestrained but also unsupervised, I have been made to feel like an insufferable crank with a bizarrely un-American point of view. I no longer bother, what is the point? The unpleasant reality is that while the courts increasingly hold dog owners responsible for the tragic consequences of attacks (some have even been found guilty of murder), accountability does not confront them until the point of a catastrophic event. Authorities are enabling of, and therefore complicit in, the idiotic choices of the most irresponsible of dog owners.

Dogs are wonderful creatures; they have provided countless years of high quality companionship through many ages and many civilizations. I believe in the right to have a dog, just like I believe in the right to have a gun. But as with guns and children, it is certain that if only those who were truly responsible would have them, they would be far fewer in number. In fact, there seems at times to be a reciprocal relationship between the numbers of dogs and children and guns one has and the degree to which, in general, one accepts responsibility.

To those in my neighborhood who let their dogs run the streets in packs, my advice is to you is talk to your insurance agent about getting an umbrella policy. Because if you don't have one and your animal causes harm to me or someone in my family, my lawyer and I will joylessly divide your property down to your last pair of socks. Ninety nine percent of the evil in the world is done not by devils and demons but by foolish and negligent people like you. When calamity of this sort strikes you, your conviction that it was none of your doing will do precious little to quiet the rumbling of your stomach.

Copyright 2011 Robert Albanese