Seeing Red

One night last week, we were out in our yard doing some weeding. We love to save this task for after dinner because the our house faces east, so by this point in the day our front yard is fairly well shaded.

Typically while we weed, Mason is riding his bike in front of the house or playing in the dirt, and the dogs are dozing in whatever sunshine they can find, or next to one of us while we curse the morning glory.

Well, this night wasn't particularly typical for a couple of reasons. First, my fantastic neighbors across the street let Mason come over and play with their kids and a few other neighborhood children because they were working in their own backyard. He loves spending time with their cute and fun kids so it was really generous of them to invite him.

Also this same neighbor also warned us about an older woman who takes a nightly walk down our street and will confront you if your dogs are off-leash outside, and she's really aggressive about it. Alan and I both hate confrontations about this because we know the leash laws for our area, and people frequently express strong opinions about our dogs. (For example, we once had a woman at the off-leash dog park attempt to remove Samson's electronic collar after she had told Alan she believed "bark collars" were abusive. Alan tried to tell her it was not a bark collar (dogs bark--can you train it out of them?) and that, on the say-so of our dog trainer, we were using them because we needed our dogs to be off-leash obedient for their training.)

Anyway, not too long after our neighbor's description of what happened to her, the walking lady approached Alan. I happened to be across the street checking on Mason and Samson had followed me and decided what I was doing wasn't interesting enough for him so he was going back home. Apparently, this lady was walking by just as he finished crossing the street back into our yard and plunked himself down. She felt justified yelling at my husband to get our dogs on leash because "it's the law!". Alan immediately replied it is not the law in our area and he would do no such thing as long as they were not behaving in an aggressive manner. She threatened to call the police department and told him that she had been bitten by a dog exactly like ours so she doesn't like them and they need to be on leash.

It's probably a good thing I wasn't there. I have a big mouth that gets me into trouble, combined with a firm knowledge of police department and animal control procedures. At the very least, I have a feeling the police would have been needed for an in-progress civil problem.

I have a huge problem with people who feel comfortable telling me how to handle my dogs unless I've asked them to (like a trainer). My dogs always follow commands given by me or my husband and don't engage in threatening behavior (they don't bark or charge at passersby, they don't chase cars, and they have never bitten outside of commands to do so). We have invested a lot of time and money into training to make this possible. Furthermore, our dogs are always supervised when they are out in the front yard. We recognize that while negative behavior isn't typical of them, it is still possible and they need to be watched.

For us to be threatened, in our own yard, for circumstances that have never occurred at our home, is absolutely infuriating to me. If the dogs had even looked up from their nap when she walked by, she may have been justified. In this case she was not and I'm still angry about the whole confrontation. I understand that not everyone likes dogs, and some people are legitimately terrified of them (especially dogs as large as ours). I'm not asking her to walk up and pet them, I'm just asking her to keep her mouth shut when she walks past as long as there is no problem!

This is a long story to make this point: if you have a pet and aren't familiar with the animal ordinances in your area please take the time to get familiar with them so you aren't "caught" as we were. We had vaguely checked into the law when we first got Rio, but we never had a need for the specifics until last night, and so we weren't entirely prepared for this woman's tirade. Next time she walks by, we will be.

Here are links to some of the animal services sites for the Salt Lake Valley Area and beyond: Salt Lake County Animal Services, Davis County Animal Control, Utah County Animal Control, Draper City Animal Services, Murray Animal Control, Sandy City Animal Services, South Jordan Animal Control, South Salt Lake Animal Services, West Valley/Taylorsville Animal Control, West Jordan Animal Control, and I couldn't find a direct website, but here is the contact information for Midvale City if you want to reach their Animal Control. They work a lot with South Jordan Animal Control, so their information may be very similar. Also, here's a link to Cottonwood Heights for Adopt a Pet; I think their animal related items may be under Ordinances, but they don't have a dedicated page for Animal Control yet.

Our vicious beasts: Rio on top and Samson on bottom