Missoula Notebook
Going to the Dogs in Missoula
By Sutton Stokes, 4-19-08
One of the most noticeable things about Missoula — other than the unfortunate tendency of so many of the male residents to wear sandals during the warmer months — is the dogs. Just about every house has at least one, and I am beginning to suspect that houses with only one are in the minority. My neighbors have two, I can hear a third howling from two houses down even as I type, and all day long there is a steady flow of dog-walkers in and out of the park across the street from my office window. To drive around town with even just one eye open is to spot dozens of the things, panting behind grates in the backs of SUVs or grinning in the wind with their heads sticking out of Outback windows, not to mention being walked or otherwise exercised on any patch of publicly owned grass larger than a postage stamp.
This canine profusion likely arises from a combination of practicality and fashion. Under the former heading, there are Missoula’s many bird hunters, for whom a retriever or two are pretty much indispensable. As for fashion, there are at least two elements to consider, (1) the way dogs seem naturally associated with the idea of Montana as an unspoiled, wild, “last best place” (see “bird hunters,” above, and various other classes of people, most of whom actually live outside of Missoula, who have practical reasons to own not only dogs but also other sexy items like cowboy boots, rifles and snakebite kits), and (2) the way dogs also seem naturally associated with — and figure heavily in the magazine ads aimed at — the organic-foods-eating, outdoors-enjoying eco-hippie lifestyle so prevalent in a place like Missoula (see also Jackson Hole, Telluride, Boulder, et al.).
You can’t have a lot of dogs in one place without also having some controversies, mainly over the use of leashes and the related issue of poop. Missoula is a leash-law town, with only one park inside city limits with a dog run — Jacobs Island Park, at 5th and Van Buren — where it’s okay to let Fido off the leash, although you wouldn’t be able to guess this by touring the rest of the city’s parks. In the park across the street from my office, for example, the proportion of dog walkers who keep their dogs on-leash is so small that it’s always a surprise to catch sight of those who do, and this despite the fact that there is a school playground at one end of the park that is often teeming with biteable little children.
I don’t know why so many dog owners believe that leash laws apply only to someone else, although I guess most of us have at least a law or two we choose to disregard, even if it’s only a speed limit. Arguably one good reason to disobey leash laws is to be able to give your dog more exercise than you’d otherwise have time for, if you don’t live next door to Jacobs Island Park, although another way of looking at this situation would be that, if you don’t have time to drive to Jacobs Island Park or to the various conservation areas where the law requires only “voice control,” maybe you don’t have time to own a dog.
Certainly if you don’t have time to train your dog properly, you’re not doing the dog, yourself or the rest of us any favors, and you could have the decency to keep it on a leash when the rest of us are trying to enjoy the outdoors without having to worry about the intentions of strange hounds loping toward us. I was walking past the Lions Club park down by the California Street foot bridge one morning when I spied a couple playing catch with their off-leash dog. As I watched, a jogger with a dog on a leash came into view on the river path. The first dog — utterly indifferent to its’ owners’ shouted commands — ran over to and started jumping on top of the jogger’s dog, not exactly attacking it but also not exactly behaving politely. It was not until one of its owners ran over and physically wrestled it away from the second dog that the jogger could finally continue on her way.
“I’m sorry,” said the man, though somehow I doubt that his regret was strong enough to inspire him to look up a good dog trainer in the yellow pages on returning home. The jogger replied that it was okay, though of course really it wasn’t.
Sometimes people want to tell you that it’s not natural to leash a dog, apparently forgetting that it’s also not natural to take a dog into your family, feed it Kibbles and Bits twice a day, and occasionally clip its toenails and brush its coat. But I would argue that it’s not always just a matter of concern for the dog that inspires all of this leashlessness. I believe there’s a clue in the way that we refer to a dog’s — but not, say, a cat’s — owner as its “master” or, less often, “mistress”; a dog is something to be mastered, in other words, and you gain some sort of status in the larger pack of dog owners to the extent that you have mastered yours. The deceptive thing is that this mastery — while it results in a relationship between a dog and a human that looks entirely free and easy — can only be the result of some pretty intensive, concerted and sustained effort at training the thing, usually requiring professional assistance.
The human who, before achieving this mastery, lets his dog off the leash in a public place where it can encounter other dogs and humans, is like any other greenhorn show-off. He cares more about how he looks for a few minutes than about how the situation turns out for everyone else involved, including the dog, who is his responsibility and whose safety and health he is risking by letting it run out of control near (1) traffic, (2) children whose parents may have recourse to good lawyers, and (3) other possibly powerful-jawed dogs who might take a dim view of being harassed by uncouth upstarts.
Then there are the people who drive around city streets with dogs in the beds of open pickup trucks, elevating this “see how free and easy I can be with my dog” display into such a wilful disregard for the dog’s safety that it should probably be considered automatic grounds for an animal-neglect citation. It’s one thing to transport a dog this way out on low-traffic, low-speed country roads or across your ranch, which is the fantasy I imagine unspooling in the driver’s mind whenever I see a dog lurching around in the back of a shiny “all hat, no cattle” pickup sailing through Disfunction Junction. But cruising down Brooks at 40 miles per hour (speaking of those laws we choose to disregard) sets your dog up to be shredded into hairy hamburger if a drunk weaves across the yellow line, with not much you can do to prevent it.
If it sounds like I hate dog owners, let me just say I’m not fond of cat owners, either, at least not owners of outside cats. Why is that I am allowed to kill a rat if it’s making a pest of itself around my house, and I can call animal control about a wandering dog, but I’m just supposed to tolerate nightly visits from cats who use my garden as a litter box and send my indoor cat into such a paroxysm of rage as she watches them from her window seat that I fear she’ll have an aneurysm or a heart attack? Feel free to explain in the comments why your right to own outdoor cats extends farther than my right not to have to do my gardening elbow deep in cat shit, with corollaries concerning why I shouldn’t trap the damn things and take them for a long ride out into the country.
That last sentence was for entertainment purposes only. I would never, never do such an awful, awful thing.
Really. I promise.
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Comments
On repeated meeting of some particularly beastly dogs, I have had a discussion with the owner. (OK, I yelled angrily as I kept going by.)
I may begin to carry the pepper spray I picked up last time I was in bear country.
As for me...well, I can't think of anything that can both sum up my position and rhyme so eloquently.
What dog owners have to remember is that Lassie and all the other movie dogs had a great deal of intensive training to create the illusion that dogs could run free.
I think it would make more sense to have more parks where dogs and their owners can play. Getting out doors to exercise is a good thing and should be encouraged, not regulated to death.
I suggest all dog owners pay their property taxes in protest until the city designated more dog parks.
But other than that, I agree that more dog parks would be a good thing.
However...
I would have focused more on the consequences, ignorance of, and self-absorbed elitist wanna-be free-for-all stupid and misguided hippy attitudes that too many newcomers adopt so readily - like letting your dog that doesn't listen wander around town. Thinking K-house makes good beer. Or taking your worthless tele-skis to the downhill mountain. Or driving around all summer long with you ski rack on top your ugly, inefficient Subaru. Or acting like because you ride a bike 10 miles a week, you're the savior of the planet. Remember, this is an old mill-town with a seriously ingrained redneck cowboy culture that most of the downtown clowns do not get, would not get, and could not get. I would have put these Subaru driving, snobby, whiny hippycrits under the knife a little more than you did. However, I'm the pendejo. And you're a little nicer than me. But good start.
A tax protest is just that a protest. You still pay your property taxes, you simply file a protest with them. then the funds are tied up until the protest is addressed or released by a court. Either way it is a good way to get the council members attention. It can also generate news coverage.
How much do you have to think to realize, no one else knows your dog (your cat, your kids), and other people use the public spaces. Or when do you realize that there is no such thing as fool-proof voice "command"? Or that it's not just your dog and your dog's waste, it's your dog's waste that gets left by the river and gets into the river, adding biohazardous, untreated waste to the water we all fish in, drink from, swim in, and irrigate our vegetables with. The bottom line, you may not care about how that stuff affects you, but--it's not about you [and your pet]; it's about being courteous and not burdening others. You're not the only one around, and since dog waste is an objectively unhealthy thing if left in the wrong place, the responsibility lies with the pet owner to properly dispose of it.
However, we must deal with reality and that most likely, Missoula's too-numerous discourteous pet owners will never out of the goodness of their hearts pick up their dogs' waste or keep their cats from harassing other cats or killing thousands of songbirds.
Because the places we speak of are all public resources, they should be maintained at a certain standard (to ensure as high a quality of life for all as possible). Until people grow up and realize their actions have consquences beyond themselves, we need to tax all pet owners in the county enough to pay to keep up with cleaning up dog waste and leash-law enforcement. People with unlicensed dogs and therefore also evading the tax should be fined three times the amount of the normal pet-owner tax. As many towns and cities have done, cat owners should also be forced to keep their cats on their own property--or inside.
While on this subject, please go get training for you and your dog so that you learn how to actually change its behavior, rather than simply abuse it in public to try and prove you're in control--you're not impressing anyone, you just look like a jerk.
The main point is, no human is an island. Part of growing up is realizing the interdepence of all life, and acting accordingly. And until everyone realizes this, the "grown-ups" must lead the way.
I don't want a black and white leash law, commonsense, common-courtesy, and showing respect to your neighbors should prevail. But, too many Missoula dog owners are clueless on commonsense, common-courtesy, and showing respect to their neighbors, and the responsibilities of owning and caring of a pet.
It is the responsibility of the pet owner to keep their animal under control (for the pets safety as well), and to pick up after it to prevent it from becoming a nuisance to others.
I think a cattle prod would work best to keep unleashed nuisance dogs from harassing my leashed dog. Bear mace is too indiscriminate and messy. A baseball bat..? I'd rather not.
It's clear that something must be done about these nuisance dog owners.
@Allen: At least you see the contradiction in your desire not to have a "black and white leash law." Personally, I see no problem dropping a strange dog with high voltage if it's running toward me, though you'd probably better have something ready for the owners, too, who are likely to take this amiss. I wish we didn't need laws either, but the problem is that life is too short for me to have worry about, say, my kid stepping in someone else's dog shit in a public playground. I don't have the time, inclination or ability to teach everyone the manners their parents forget to drum in or didn't possess in the first place. Hence, the need for a law or two...
< http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/dogs.html >
I can understand your angst at the dog situation in Missoula. If you live here long enough, you may get used to it, or you may not.
On the other hand, I don't understand your annoyance at males wearing sandals during the warmer months. If you wouldn't mind obliging, can you tell me why it is so unfortunate that males wear sandals?
Its hot out, my feet don't like to be hot, so I wear as little as possible on my feet in the summer - generally flip flops.
Is it the trendiness that you have a problem with, or is it the exposed foot flesh? Or is it some other issue altogether.
I don't get it?
By doing so, you selfishly expose the rest of us to ugliness, and — however unsafe it is to make assumptions about people in general — I think it is safe to say that most of us would rather not look at ugly things, such as the hairs curling willy-nilly from your toe knuckles, or the rinds of dirt under your overgrown, curling toe nails.
There is also the simple matter of a man's responsibilities, which — as we mature and grow — we learn to put ahead of our own personal comfort. What would you do, in your flip flops, if you had to chase a purse snatcher, or slap someone with a glove for speaking disrespectfully to a lady in your presence? Are you really prepared to Take Action in such circumstances? Or do you prefer to leave everything important in life up to Someone Else?*
Why, I bet you don't even carry a penknife.
*(This rant borrows from a joke I once heard Denis Leary tell.)
Funny that you mention responsibilities because as a matter of pure fact, I can actually remove my sandals, put them in my pocket, and run on my ugly barefeet anywhere in downtown Missoula faster than the average man can run anywhere with his ugly feet in his shoes.
Bottom line . . . you should feel confident that if I am around when someone steals your purse, I will be barefoot and in hot pursuit of the culprit.
I hear what you are saying about ugly feet. However, like my good friend and personal legal counsel always advises . . . "If they're looking, its their problem." He is usually speaking about a different kind of public exposure, but the principle still applies.
Anyway, I like your writing and hope you are enjoying Missoula despite its uglier (or redeeming) characteristics.
By the way, its pronounced like the bread and the planet - "Rye" & "Anus."
If not, I can wait until you return. Until then...
Are you calling me a pendejo?
If it sounds like I hate dog owners, let me just say I’m not fond of cat owners, either, at least not owners of outside cats. Why is that I am allowed to kill a rat if it’s making a pest of itself around my house, and I can call animal control about a wandering dog, but I’m just supposed to tolerate nightly visits from cats who use my garden as a litter box and send my indoor cat into such a paroxysm of rage as she watches them from her window seat that I fear she’ll have an aneurysm or a heart attack? Feel free to explain in the comments why your right to own outdoor cats extends farther than my right not to have to do my gardening elbow deep in cat shit,
with corollaries concerning why I shouldn’t trap the damn things and take them for a long ride out into the country.
Missoula dogs are very well trained. They are doing exactly what their owners tell them to. The dog notices someone and alerts, looking to the owner for direction. The owner notices and tenses, because they don't know what the dog is going to do. The dog reads the owner's body language, "THREAT!!!" and responds accordingly. I've yet to see a dog owner in mazooland who doesn't practice this daily.