4- Friday, July 31, $987 - North Shore News Bob Hunter @ strictly personal © WITH ALL the fuss over pit bulls, what amazes me is how insanely tolerant society is of dogs in gencral. I'm not. While 1 find most pets to be pests, dogs are par- ticularly bad. Hardly anyone 1 visit has a dog that isn't a nuisance of some kind. The other day, at a family pic- nic, my father-in-law’s dog wandered down from his place a couple of houses away to join the fun This particular dog is a perfect example of what | mean. It’s friendly, God knows. So friendly it keeps jumping all over people who are seated, knocking over drinks and tipping plates. Nothing serious. Just very ir- ritating. Normally, that dog doesn’t dare come into my yard. The reason is simple enough. I hurl rocks at him. The reason | hurl rocks at him, apart from the fact that { don’t feel like having him jump all over me, is that he digs up flower beds, tramps through the garden, scatters bark mulch and has the gall to drop you-know-what on my lawn. So, rather than allow the fami- ly picnic to be disrupted by my father-in-law’s idiot of a dog, ! went straight over and kicked him. The dog, that is. FEETURES| Li $1.00 | SHOE] SALE CONTINUES nd pair only $1.00 988-1100 | [| He ran away yipping. You know what the reaction of the family was?) They cheered. They were relieved that someone finally cracked down on the stupid dog. The problem, as you can see, is that my in-laws have absolutely no control aver their hound. He roams where he will and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “sit,’’ or any other commands, for that matter. As far as I can tell, most dogs are like this. A couple of weeks ago, J had a friend and his wife over for din- ner. Knowing | have a large back yard, he thought tt might be fun to bring their own dog and let him run around. It might have been, except we ate oul on the picnic table and the dumb pooch spent the entire visit hanging around as close as he could, trying to make you pet him non-stop. Whether he was atten- tion-starved, or whatever his probiem was, he drove us crazy one by one until we finally locked him up in the basement, where he got into the clothes rack and chewed up a bunch of baby stuff. Again, no control. 1 have a perfectly intelligent, mature female friend who has a couple of yappy litthe dwarfish dogs “who make so much noise defending their turf when anybody comes near that you _.....Dine & Dance — Dine & Dance UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT SINCE APRIL 1/87 Now you can zlso dance, during and after dinner, on our new dance floor. If the weather is pleasant we also serve dinner outside on our balcony. * DINNER SPECIAL this Friday and Saturday evening: New York Steak and a Half-Dungeness Crab Dine & Dance — Dine & Dance New Telephone Number 980-9508 Reservations Required : The Anchor In 1653 Columbia Street, NVan. {at Lynnwood Marina) can't carey on a conversation Why have that kind of hassle in your fe, let alone in the smid- dle of your house? E notice sue spends a tot of her time -und oa huge amount of energy—aryuing, pleading, reasoning with them, as if if mat- tered whether they understood what was going on or not. | say cook ‘em Chinese-style and invite us over for the barbecue. The simple fact is that spoiled dogs are like spoiled kids, a royal Pain to everyone around then. {have a dog. a St. Bernard. She's used to a fairly disciplined life where she sleeps in the base- ment at night so she won't keep us or the neighbors awake. She's never fed except at a regular time. She never comes into the j living quarters. The rest of the time she Mops around outdoors with her tongue hanging out a foot and makes an enormous WOOF from time to time. Kids crawl all over her and she toves it, while strangers hesi- tate to wander into the yard. Yet when I try to get her to follow a specific command, she just’ gives me a_ blank look, discovers a fly in the air that she takes a nip at, then walks away, wagging her tail. So I’m not saying that 'm a great dog-trainer. And that’s the problem. Who is? Although studies haven't been done in West Van, Vancouver or New Westminster, a survey revealed 117 recorded cases of dog bites in the rest of Greater Vancouver in the first three mon- ths of this year, with injuries ranging up to 50 stitches. This suggests to me a lot of out-of-control beasties. If you can't control a dog, you shouldn't have it. 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