Dogs Not Properly Contained Are All ‘Potentially Dangerous’
Dogs Not Properly Contained Are All ‘Potentially Dangerous’
Editor,
Regarding the story “Hollister Dogs Behind Bars Again” (May 3):
If we can agree that the average dog owner is smart enough to keep their dogs properly contained, what IQ can you then ascribe to one who repeatedly fails to do so? Ninety? Eighty?
What then, if said dogs force children to take refuge on a car top and yet STILL the owner fails to contain them? I’m thinking we’re probably looking at a 70.
But let us not stop there. What IQ has been earned if the same dogs then proceed to kill a neighbor’s chihuahua and another’s cat? Perhaps we can deduct five points per animal. Where are we now? Sixty?
We should probably deduct additional points for such statements as “My dogs wouldn’t hurt any people,” and “But when I did something wrong, I paid the ticket.”
However, we are fast approaching the IQ level of the dogs themselves, and I would not presume to insult them. They are after all just “doing the natural thing.”
Come to think of it, These two dogs are clearly smarter than their owner, given his inability to contain them.
When all is said and done, though, I suppose the real intellectual challenge is in determining why on earth a system would allow these dogs to remain at large, when the owner is clearly incapable or unwilling to meet his responsibility.
We read story after story of dog attacks in the news, and invariably there is a long list of complaints associated with each one leading up to the tragedy.
If the evidence we need to declare them “potentially dangerous” is a mauling incident, then clearly the wheel is spinning but the mouse ain’t home.
Perhaps we need a new definition of “potentially dangerous.”
For my money, any dog which is not properly contained, is “potentially dangerous.” Let’s not allow them to prove it.
Bob Easterday
Hollister
