Why are dog owners such horrid scofflaws? According to our local police-lady, there are fifty-three signs distributed around the downtown mall that either say, in clear language, No Pets, or else picture a dog bisected with a diagonal line. But it's impossible to take a walk without encountering two or three or half a dozen people obliviously or defiantly parading Rover or Spot.
I think it's reasonable to assume that the owners can read, or if "No Pets" is too difficult to construe, that they could interpret the icons. It's possible that they're just unobservant, and don't notice the signs, but I suspect not. The signs are hard to miss.
I suspect that the dog people just assume that they're above the law. They love their pooch, love its barking, love its scat, love the way it playfully lunges at small children, and they can't imagine that anyone in the world would take exception to their prerogative.
It's the same on the mountain trails. Just because the sign says, All Dogs Must Be On Leash, doesn't mean that the law applies to Me.
I once said to a dog owner who was walking his big dogs off-leash, "You know that you're breaking the law." He barked at me: "Get a life." Another time a bulldog attacked me on the street, and I was warding him off with my briefcase when the owner called him back. I said, "Dogs are supposed to be on leash." He said, "What are you, the dog warden?" A friend was knocked off her bicycle by a large, aggressive dog. The owner, who should have knelt on ground glass in apology, said only, "He doesn't like bicycles."
And many other such stories, but you get my point.
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