These public debates tend to exaggerate but who of us have not seen or been the victim of some incorrigible dog guardian’s behavior. It would be easy to dismiss these claims as the grumbling of a small but vocal anti-dog contingent, but to do so would be ignoring the fact that there do exist some serious issues with dogs in our community, such as uncontrollable dogs and their clueless guardians at parks, and dog walkers with far too many dogs, for examples. That’s why there’s a dog at your office right at this moment and you’re having to pretend that he’s just the cutest.
#Animosity shows no sign letting free
That’s why, when you’re at a café, the dog at the neighboring table feels free to curl up under your seat. That’s why there are so many dogs running around at the park, jumping up on the bench beside you while you’re trying to read a book, the owner never asking if it’s OK with you. He goes on to lament:īut dog owners? They seem to suffer few qualms about their animals’ behavior. He fueled the heated discussion that veered to the “dogs are worse than children” comparison, and a debate on which Bay Area parent (canine or human) was more irresponsible. The tech author of the Slate article, Farhad Manjoo, a father of a two-year-old boy and an avowed nondog person-argued that parents like himself “rein in” their children far more often than do dog owners. Many examples of irresponsibility and misbehaving committed by dogs and people were cited-dogs damaging city parks, knocking over joggers while their owners remained unaware and unresponsive attacking horses on trails, thoughtless, selfish dog owners who mislabel their pets as service dogs to gain unfettered access everywhere, aggressive dogs, untrained dogs, and unwanted invitations “to pet my dog.” The activist on the panel, and many of the dog-loving callers, also tried to add a more reasoned and balanced voice and pointed out all the enormous benefits that dogs bring to the community and individuals but recognized that a “few” bad apples do tend to spoil it for the many. The show featured a local dog rights and off-leash activist a representative from the SF Department of Health and a tech writer from whose recent article “No, I Do Not Want to Pet Your Dog” (with the tagline “It’s time to take America back”) inspired the program and blasts the untenable overindulgence of San Francisco dogs and their owners. The hour-long program can be heard online.
We discuss whether our region really has a dog-coddling problem. Last week, the very popular call-in public radio show KQED’s “Forum” asked the question “Is the Bay Area Too Dog Friendly?”-the program description didn’t mince words: The Bay Area is known for being a dog-loving region, but has our canine adoration reached an unhealthy level? Dogs now accompany us into grocery stores, cafes, and even offices, but some argue that we’re excessively spoiling our dogs at the expense of others. These claims suggest that the societal scales have tipped too far in favor of dogs and their human companions, and that dogs are pampered and over-indulged. But this point of view was made abundantly clear this past week as I caught up to the growing opposition to dogs in the San Francisco Bay Area, fueled by rants produced in local media. Being an unequivocal dog person, it’s sometimes difficult to understand the opposing sentiment-that not everybody loves dogs.
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