Good Afternoon! (Hey, its always afternoon SOMEWHERE, right?!)
The DogMageddon continually raises issues and questions regarding the keeping of animals in our communities.
As I have noted in the past, just about any animal that can be a nuisance (aggressive towards humans, noise polluting) has been zoned out. By "zoned out" I mean they are banned or severely restricted in neighborhoods, and possession of such creatures is typically only allowed on farms, zoos, or in remote / rural areas. How many sheep are living in your downtown apartment tower. I thought so.
So, what are the boundaries of pet ownership in cities and suburbs? I believe that pet ownership is a *privilege* in such places, and the privilege may be maintained if the following 2 criteria are met:
1) The animal must be kept in a humane manner. For example, you can argue that a gerbil can be kept humanely in a small apartment BUT a horse cannot.
2) The animal must be kept in a socially acceptable manner. The keeping of said animal should not violate the rights of anyone else. The ONLY person subject to the downsides of owning the pet should be the pet owner.
I estimate that dog people fail both of the 2 criteria on a regular basis.
This raises the question, what sort of animals CAN be kept in human communities, given both of the criteria set above? I believe that any animal kept in a human community should meet the following 3 general guidelines:
1) Non-aggressive towards humans.
2) Quiet. If the animal vocalizes at all, it should be at human-level volume or LOWER *and* for short durations.
3) Small and light enough to be easily handled by the average adult.
Again, dogs and dog owners flunk the above on a very consistent basis. Small dogs typically flunk 1 and 2 above, and large dogs flunk all 3.
So, what is wrong here? Why is the ADA service animal [dog] provision such a fail?
It empowers dog people to take their dog everywhere COUNTER to:
- Local and state health and safety laws. Feds came in and USURPED the rules set by all these states and municipalities that said NO ANIMALS in places that sell or serve food, among other things.
- Feds ALSO usurped the rights of proprietors and the public to a dog-free space. I have a right to seek a dog free dining experience.
All of this is VERY heavy handed, and I believe, of dubious constitutionality. For example, the my state government does NOT allow pets on state park beach areas. The feds came in and said, YES you must allow mutts everywhere, including the beach as long as the dog owner says "the magic words!". This is a breach of home rule protections.
I believe it is also a breach of association rights and property rights. Say you are a proprietor of a restaurant, and you want to offer people a dog free space. Thanks to the ADA, you are now no longer allowed to do that: You MUST accommodate the dogs, or else.
The worst problem with this is: The Feds bestowed all this *power* upon dog owners WITH NO OVERSIGHT.
Sometimes, one can be right about one thing, and still be WAY out in left field. You might be saying something that, while technically correct, does not resonate with anyone. This is often due to hypocrisy, lack of reasoning skills, zero self awareness, ignorance of the domain, or all of the above.
A commenter on one of my YT videos came up with the "ADEP" acronym. This means "All Dogs Except Pits". In other words, an ADEP is a dog lover firmly committed to the principles of dog culture who simultaneously wants to ban Pit Bulls, or perhaps some other dog breed they don't like. They are correct that the nasty murder-beasts have no place in human communities, but they get just about everything else wrong. Before anyone jumps out of their skin, consider that to be an ADEP you must meet BOTH of the following criteria: 1) Dog cultist, 2) Want to ban pit bulls.
I have written about this many times in the past. This type of double-standard reasoning has made a complete mess of the situation, and I really wish all of these people would go away.
Now, all dog owners who want to get rid of pit bulls are not necessarily ADEPs. If you are a sane, meticulous, dog owner who respects the facts that pet ownership is a privilege dependent on keeping the animal in a humane and socially acceptable way, you respect the "golden rule" and various other social contracts, then you can make a solid and honest case for some breed restrictions.
However when you move out on the crazy scale, when you start to idolize dogs and dog ownership, the case for BSL will become very weak. It is a stretch to, on one hand insist that Dogs are Man's Best Friend! Everyone has to love dogs! Only Dogs give unconditional love! Dogs and Man have a SPECIAL GENETIC CONNECTION! And, then on the other hand, say We must banish a dog breed from the face of the earth! I am not arguing with their last premise, just all of the previous premises. While we have not crossed the boundary to a total double standard, the case for a breed ban is now very weak. It is weak because people are going to apply those pro-dog values to dog breeds that some people don't like.
The above under consideration, realize that the crazy train has not yet left the station. If your narrative is Dogs are better than people! Don't trust anyone who doesn't love dogs! Fido is a perfect judge of human character! Dogs never attack without good reason! If that is your narrative, congratulations! There is NO case to be made for breed restrictions in that framework.
It also appears that it is particularly hypocritical to glorify, advocate for, hype and promote large dogs and their ownership while simultaneously advocating to get rid of 1 or 2 breeds of them. Large dogs of other breeds badly injure people and create other problems all the time and not a peep out of you. I have yet to hear a good reason for the presence of ANY large dog in a human city that does not involve some mindless emotional appeal, canine supremacy or some other major logical fail.
Quite frankly, it is sanctimonious crap to advocate for these large breeds knowing the problems they cause. Again, yes, I and everyone else understands that pit bulls can and do inflict MORE damage during an attack, but so what? ADEPs essentially argue that any attack that doesn't result in a total dismemberment is somehow totally acceptable. Given B is less bad than A doesn't mean that B is totally acceptable. Someone deliberately spreading Smallpox makes a bad case for eliminating Ebola. Again, total fail.
We have zoned out just about every other large animal from human communities (don't make a fool of yourself and tell me about your cow.... you don't have a fucking cow in your 400 square foot downtown apartment, do you?). ALL large dogs should be zoned out of cities and suburbs: Doing so takes care of the pit bull problem by default, and solves a bunch of other problems at the same time.
I discuss this in the following video:
Have a great evening, and as always... People First.
After 20+ years of ENDLESSLY playing the breed ID game,
haven’t we had enough? Great article on
Dogsbite.org the other day. I left some
comments.
The gist of it is, dog nuts in the UK have found several
creative ways to side-step / cheat on the breed restrictions there. The UK dangerous dogs act of 1991 banned the
following 4 breeds: Dogo Argentino, Fila
Brasileiro, Pit Bull Terrier and Japanese Tosa. Lets pause for a moment: Is the Japanese Tosa a popular dog breed
anywhere? Who knew.
In any case, UK dog nuts and power breed fanatics have
been cross-breeding, designer breeding, and discovering various other ways to
side step this restriction.This is in
addition to the fact that you can still own pit bulls in the UK if certain
conditions are met.Thank dog for that!
This illustrates one problem with trying to limit or
restrict a couple dog breeds:Dog nuts
will figure out a way to mix their breed of choice *just enough* to side step
the ban, adopt a power dog not on the list (i.e. Presa Canario), or just go
ahead and create a new breed.Think about
it:A dog breed is essentially just a
consumer product line.The producers can
create new lines all they want.How
many brands of underarm deodorant could we have?Think about that.
Note the operative words above include “one problem”.Another problem is enforcement.As long as the policy is to give Fido a pass
on everything, enforcement is going to be very lax.
Many times over the past 10 years I have made the point
that allowing large (40+ lb) dogs in cities and residential areas is grossly
unreasonable.How do you justify that
when EVERY other animal in these areas is either limited to small pets (reptiles, cats, etc… )
or zoned out entirely (goats, sheep, horses, etc…).If anything, you would restrict large dogs
in cities as an animal welfare measure.
To those who remark about their Great Dane, St. Bernard,
etc…. “My Fido is super sweet!He’d
never harm a fly!”.Yes, precisely the
same words uttered by every Pit Bull fanatic in existence.Do you even hear yourselves?Let me ask you something:Could you stop your dog from assaulting
someone?If Fido knocks someone over,
that could injure them pretty badly.Are
you willing to take responsibility for that? How about if I push YOU over onto the concrete? How about this: Is keeping a bunch of St. Bernards in a 400 square foot downtown apartment
a good idea?
So, with all that said, here is my proposition: Lets limit ALL pets in cities and residential areas to 35 lbs or less. "Limit" meaning that you would need a variance to exceed the threshold. THIS puts an END to all of these endless rounds of breed ID Bull Shit! And while we are at it, lets de-normalize assault-by-dog.
My foray into you-tubing has been less than productive. All of the MuttHeads videos will be available on this site, and this site only. They will not be viewable directly on youtube. For now, they are unlisted, but viewable here. My intention is to delete them from YT and upload them to this site. There may or may not be more of them, but for the most part its been just a time waster. I put a lot of effort into them, so they may as well be viewable for the half a dozen or so that are interested in them.
I've always seen myself as more a writer than a performer, so I'll stick primarily to what I am good at. My "Letter to My Neighbor" blog got 36,000 views, and my best youtube video got about 200. So, with that under consideration, what is the best use of my time and effort in this space? That begs the question.
My next move will be to work on the quintessential dog apocalyptical novel. People have been bugging me for 10 years to write a book, so how can they all be wrong.
Pitbulls. Pitbulls, everywhere! The other
day, my ring cam chimes. I go to the
door (should have checked the video first), and what do I see? An at-large pitbull, what else would it have been? He charges when I open the door, so I slam the door in his face. Fido may have only been selling girl-scout cookies, maybe not. Best to err on the side of caution.
The proliferation of pit bulls is just astounding.It seems that, everywhere I go I see
pitbulls.Many of my neighbors now have
them.Its very common to see someone
walking one or more pitbulls whenever driving in or out of here.The other day I saw a woman walking her 2
pitbulls:She is totally detached, focus
entirely on her smartphone, holding the leashes loosely. I was hiking a state park yesterday and saw
multiple pitbulls, one of them off leash (who growled at me).
I have a hypothesis that may explain this mass proliferation of pitbulls. I now hold the belief that pitbulls reproduce similar to
single celled organisms, not mammals. Each pitbull undergoes a mitosis every 24 hours or so. By that I mean that each pitbull divides in half, creating 2 pitbulls in its place. The exponential growth of the pitbull population can't be explained in any other way.
The below meme sums up what I am contemplating here:
When hiking, I am often dismayed (but not surprised) at finding poop bags* along the trail. Apparently, people pick up after their pets, bag the poo.... only to leave it behind.
(*I am sure these bags contain anteater poop as no dog owner would ever do anything like this!)
Consider:
And:
This is by no means the worst I have seen: Trails on many properties are literally lined with poop bags! Um, what exactly is the point of picking up the poo to simply put it back down again? Who do you think is going to pick up these bags?
Still had a nice hike, though. Florida Hiking:
Saw some wild hog damage on the hike, consider:
Notice how the forest floor is completely torn up in the above photo? FERAL HOGS!
Dog lovers always deflect. When a dog mauls or kills, they say "don't blame the dog" because the dog is a not a moral agent (moral agency requires a certain level of intelligence that dogs lack). They say this because they do NOT want the dog put down under any circumstances. Should dogs that maul and kill be summarily put down? Unqualified YES!
But, didn't I just say the dog can't really be held accountable for what it did? Indeed, it isn't: Summary destruction of all dogs that maul and kill is strictly an exercise in risk mitigation. It has nothing to do with accountability.
As an allegory, lets consider an event that occurred outside of the Animal Uncontrol universe.
June, 2021: The Champlain Condo tower in Surfside Florida partially collapsed. The building was roughly "L" shaped, and the arm of the "L" perpendicular to the beach went down. The incident is still being investigated, and the apparent cause is a variety of factors.
Champlain Towers immediately after the collapse:
What is interesting to us in the above case is, soon after the initial collapse, authorities ordered the demolition (destruction) of the still-standing portion of the building. Why would they do that? Similar to a dog, a building is not a moral agent - it doesn't know what its doing. Were these authorities thinking "We will hold that building responsible! We will show it a thing or two!!! Let this set an example for the rest of those buildings!" No, that is not why they brought it down.
The remaining portion of the Champlain Towers structure was demolished strictly as a risk mitigation measure. The remaining structure was clearly unstable and unsafe and was brought down before it could cause any more problems. What problems? Well, while not 100% sure it would collapse on its own, there would be no way to be sure when it would collapse or in what way: It could collapse into a neighboring building or into the street, for example. Furthermore, such things create an "attractive nuisance" whereby homeless people would try to squat in it and teenagers would force entry in search of a good place to party.
So, the remaining portion of the Champlain Towers was brought down in an orderly and controlled manner to mitigate the risk it posed.
So, with that said, any dog that fails its real-world temperament test (the only test that means squat) must be summarily put down as a risk mitigation measure. It has nothing to do with holding the dog accountable (though you can believe that if you want to, whatever).
Lets stop enabling "dangerous dog laundering". No more get out of jail free cards, Fido.
It takes one hell of a lot of CHUTZPAH for a bunch of dog owners to tell the rest of us to KEEP IT DOWN. What, NOW noise pollution is a problem? I thought everybody had to "Just get used to it"? Look, you keep telling me your poodle is smarter than my honor student, shouldn't Fido understand this is strictly celebratory and not a war?
Look, if they (dog owners) get to tone me up 24/7/365, why can't I tone it up a couple days a year? Oh, wait.... DOGGY DOUBLE STANDARD! Their entitlement status empowers them to do to us what we would NEVER be allowed to do to them. Listen up good you proles! Put your earplugs back in and get your asses back to the salt mines! Dog owners tell you what to do, not the other way around!
Dog cultists are now suffering under the “Total Dog Solution” that they themselves have
created. They want to blame “Pit Nutters”, but the
regime they created has now gone insane and is consuming its own. Ready to take responsibility, yet?
One of the leading causes
of death in the 20th century was “Democide”, i.e. a government exterminating
its own people.Good examples of this
are Hitler’s Germany and Pol Pot’s Cambodia.Communism and Nazism are good examples of a “Total State Solution” where
everything is run by and for the government, and that government and its agents
can have no restraint placed on its behavior whatsoever.An explosion of death and violence are the
inevitable result of such a regime.
Dog worshipers have created
a policy environment where dogs and dog owners must never have any restraint
place upon them, whatsoever.Everything
Fido does, by definition, is absolutely good and just because Fido did it.Period, end of conversation.They have successfully implemented The
Total Dog Solution.
Pit Nutters are the
equivalent of the Black SS or the Khmer Rouge, projecting violence and intimidation
against everyone in the name of the almighty Dog. Remember, they are dog owners, too and can’t
be restrained in any way. Anything done
in the name of Dog is by definition great and wonderful. They are the true enforcers of the Total Dog
Solution.
Some argue if we get rid
of pit bulls, we can go back to normal.Nice
try, but won’t work as something resembling the pit bull apocalypse is the
INEVITABLE outcome of the Total Dog Solution.As long as dogs and their owners are placed above the rules of good
behavior, the problem will not only continue but will get worse.Pit Nuttery is merely a symptom of the Total
Dog Solution.
Pursuant to the above, one
common outcome of a “Total State Solution” is the liquidation of “useful idiots”:Essentially, morons that promote the revolution
and are subsequently eliminated when they are no longer useful.Lovers
of non-pit dogs are the “useful idiots” in the Total Dog Solution scenario:You and Fluffy got shredded by Pits because
the worst among you no longer have a use for you.
Left a comment on Dogsbite.org today. Apparently, a woman was killed when breaking into her own home by the 4 mutts occupying the residence.
This is the primary reason that lethal booby-traps are illegal as hell everywhere. Even your hard-core survivalist types refuse to use them. Why? They frequently result in a "hoist with your own petard" type outcome where the "booby" turns out to be the very person that laid the trap.
However, this again reveals the insane doggy double standard: Lethal booby traps are perfectly fine and acceptable when the booby trap in question is a DOG(s).
"Self defense?". Anyone arguing self defense in a case like this needs to be told to go find a tall building and jump off it. Dogs do NOT have the same rights as people, and a dog does not have a right to defend itself against a human being in ANY scenario. When and where is is appropriate to use force against a human being is a right reserved for HUMAN BEINGS, period.
Take careful note of what I wrote above: Your dog should NOT be allowed to attack anyone, anywhere for any reason. I used to be tempted to give a pass if someone was threatening or tormenting the animal, but dog fanatics have repeatedly demonstrated they are unable to reason and insist that any and all violence committed by dogs is absolutely, 100% acceptable. So, screw them.
