Unleashed Dog Drowns While Chasing Bird; No Medical Benefits for Pet Ownership

According to the Prospect Heights Patch, an unleashed poodle drowned on Sunday morning while chasing a bird on Prospect Park lake.

Tony Chiappelloni, president of Fido in Prospect Park, is quoted as saying that it wasn't the owner's fault since "Because of the fog, the owner didn't realize how close she was to the lake"

"The woman who had the dog was being responsible, but you couldn't see anything," he said, adding that the owner is now "insane with grief."

Of course, the off-leash rules specifically forbid unleashed dogs from chasing wildlife, which is just what this dog was doing, and require that unleashed dogs be under their owner's control, which this dog obviously wasn't (unless it was chasing the bird with the owner's permission). Also, the article doesn't say exactly where this happened, and while it could have happened in the Peninsula meadow, which borders the lake, our guess is that it happened at the duck-feeding beach on the south side of the lake, where birds congregate in large numbers and where dogs must be leashed at all times. In any event, while we feel sorry for the dog, who was doing precisely what unleashed dogs do (which is why they shouldn't be unleashed in the first place) we feel less than no sympathy for its irresponsible scofflaw owner.

Perhaps Mr. Chiappelloni would serve his constituency better by encouraging them to obey the law, as he says he does, instead of making excuses for them when they ignore it, as he actually does.

Hat-tip to Winston Smith.

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An op-ed piece in today's Times debunks the idea that pet ownership has medical benefits.