Random Thought #1

I thought it might be fun to add a random thoughts sections...especially since I had a one today. Well, I tend to have a lot of random thoughts, but most aren't all that interesting to others. And I promise they will not all be what I call "get off my lawn" commentary.

As I was walking down my street today, I noticed a 20-something man walking a rather cute pit bull. What immediately got my hackles up (yes, hackles. You know, that almost physical bristling feeling as if you had big feathers on your shoulder blades that had just been ruffled...am I the only person like this?) was the guy letting the dog use the parked cars as some kind of virtual lawn. I must add that there is a lot of poop littering our local streets and sidewalks and, while the government has gone to the trouble of installing dog poop cans through out the city with an almost obscene cartoon of a dog squatting and defecating, the police do nothing to enforce the laws about picking up after dogs. Added to the fact that most homes are relatively small and very few have a yard, I find it maddeningly egregious that dog ownership here is so high.

To top it off, there was a public park (the queen's public gardens, no less) literally around the corner from where this man is walking his dog and it is conveniently supplied with both a dog poop trash can and free plastic bags.

Is this what the world is coming to? The neighborly spat about your dog shitting on my lawn has digressed into finding a load next to your car door in the morning and/or being the victim of a vaguely horrible smell that is either urine or the poop you have just run over or both. It may be a relief to the legions of passive aggressives out there - both dog owners and victims alike, but for the rest it feels like an unsolvable problem.

The solution, I think, is for the police to not only fine a dog owner caught in the act of not following up after their dog, but that dog ownership is revoked entirely. On top of it all, it is just not fair to the animal. Dude, get an iguana.