Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Tickets in Canada

This should sound pretty familiar. A dog owner in (it seems) a Montreal suburb bellyaches about his and his friends’ getting tickets for letting their dogs loose illegally in a public park. The op-ed piece generated this response.

Dog owners should grow up

Re: "Canine freedom is being squashed with tickets being issued for unleashed dogs" (Gazette, July 21). Are these people adults? They argue that they aren't bothering anyone that early in the morning, and that they'd been letting their dogs run free for years. Their point is what? Should we let a person get away with breaking the law just because they've done it for years without getting caught? When we've asked people in parks to leash their dogs, we always get negative responses, or we're told not to worry about it. My personal favourite was an individual telling us the large dogs running around our small child was a "good experience" for her, and she should learn not to be afraid.

If you want your dog to run around without a leash, then ask your mayor to build a dog run. Leave the public parks open to the public; you and your dog are not above the law. I am glad that the laws are being enforced. Now my family can go to the parks and not have to worry about strange dogs running free. It is really simple: Obey the law, or pay a fine.

Megan Knight
Île Bizard

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