Man's best friend indeed!?!

Ever since their domestication, dogs have been there for us. They've captured our hearts with everything from heroic feats of crotch sniffing and disposal of our table scraps, to more practical everyday acts of self-sacrifice, like diving onto live grenades to spare the lives of their human comrades, or saving us from starvation when we find ourselves floating in the Arctic on a patch of ice that broke off from the mainland, waiting to be rescued. Clearly and deservedly, dogs are man's best friends (insert theme from "Psycho" here)...or are they?!?

Lately, there's been a surge of media attention focused on vicious, often unprovoked dog attacks on humans. So much so, that the Ontario government has followed other jurisdictions in passing a bill banning pitbulls. I'm not sure where exactly I stand on this issue just yet. I am not a dog owner, and I do get upset over news of another mauling, but I've also been around all sorts of dogs my whole life, from playing with a friend’s pet to volunteering at a dog shelter. I've seen the good and the bad, so maybe for once I can present an objective, unbiased case, as has always been my intention. Although, I'm pretty sure that by the time I'm done writing this post, I'd have formed a strong opinion favouring one extreme over the other. There's just something about putting arguments in writing, that angries up the blood!

I've had my share of run-ins with aggressive pooches. I had a paper-route once, and there was never any shortage of feisty little pricks desperately trying to justify their existence by rushing to the door barking their brains out at me. Look, princess, they clip your toe nails and make you wear a sweater…you’re a pet, NOT a guard dog, ok, and believe me there’s a difference! Once, on my way home from biking along nearby country roads, and hopping into an adjacent golf courses to play a round of back 9, on the house of course, I found myself unable to recover my bike stashed away in the woods. It was dark by then, and the woodlot surrounded by doberman pinschers (pictured). They didn’t belong to the golf club, but rather a neighbouring property in the middle of nowhere. Picture a house from hell, junk cars all over the lot, not another house for half a mile, and a pack of guard dogs running around unrestrained. This may be an everyday site in the back country, but it wasn't this close to a metropolis. My only option was to walk back onto the golf course, without my bike, and make a run for it. After a quick dash, I thought I'd made it out ok, but then felt the need to go back and get my bike. Home was a long walk, but as soon as I looked back, I noticed one of the dogs in full sprint towards me, so I ran again. He was gaining fast, so I stopped to face him, thinking about ringing his neck or giving him a Chuck Norris-like roundhouse kick to the head. I quickly abandoned that thought at the site of 3 more dogs emerging from the darkness. I owe my salvation to a diagonal leap across a drainage canal running parallel to the golf course and the road. It could be that the dogs either couldn’t match my gazelle-like athleticism, or that their jurisdictional authority didn’t extend past the ditch. Whatever the case, I wasn’t gonna let them win, and returned later that night to retrieve my bike, this time armed with a fine piece of German engineering…my dad’s 1986, 4-door, Audi 5000. I parked it on the road, engine running, ran into the woodlot, got the bike and wedged it into the trunk, just far enough to be able to drive off from there, and secure it later. As I sat back behind the wheel, I noticed the dogs were mere steps from the front of the car, with blood thirsty looks. I revved the engine, and they reluctantly cleared a path, and I was on my way. What became of those dogs, I am not sure, but the house has since been bulldozed to make way for cookie-cutter suburbia.

What's odd about the whole thing is that at no point during the entire encounter did I feel scared. Only adrenaline, excitement, whatever...but no fear. Was I just too young and dumb to realize the potential seriousness of the situation had they caught me? Perhaps. Or maybe it was the fact that dog maulings weren't in the media spotlight at that time. Now, looking back at my encounter, I realize I could have been torn to pieces and with no help in sight, some golfer would have found me the next day as he positioned himself for his 9th shot on a par 4. At least by comparison, he'd be having a good day. Now thinking about being torn to pieces, I become…afraid…very afraid…because the media says I should, and now the law says so too. I can't be around dogs anymore, and although not scarred physically, I've been so emotionally...pfff, whatever! I like dogs just fine, and that incident has not changed that for the worse at all. It's not the dogs' fault, it's the crazy and careless owners that train dogs to hate. And should you be one of those folks that fears dogs to an unreasonable degree due to some isolated incident from the past, my advice to you is, you obviously got away, so get over it! If that doesn’t help calm you, then maybe this will. Dr. Dubernard of France recently performed a successful partial face transplant on a woman severely disfigured by a dog attack. If your fear of dog attacks is more related to loss of function rather than aesthetics, scientists at the University of Tsukuba, Japan can offer you HAL. Hybrid Assistive Limb is a robotic suit that when worn, can assist weak or disabled individuals with walking, lifting and many common, labour-intensive tasks. So as you can see, should your dog encounter turn ugly, science has a variety of ways to "help"you...each leaving you looking even odder that the dog attack itself would.

In closing, the law should focus on dog owners/breeders that train their animals to hurt and hate...that’s the root of the problem. As for all the good dog owners out there, God bless you all, you lovable shit-picker-uppers, for keeping your dogs in check and our streets and parks crap free.