The dogs around the corner

(First published in Stuff regional papers and on stuff.co.nz, August 22.)

My wife and I moved to a different part of town about 18 months ago. Since then I’ve been acquainting myself with the dogs in our new neighbourhood.

There’s a black and white one, possibly part-dalmatian, that barks menacingly from behind a high wooden fence on my approach, but then jumps up and whimpers with gratitude when I reach through a gap to pat it.

There’s a big, sad-looking black fellow of indeterminate breed with a deformed paw, an eager young chocolate-brown lab that bounds up to greet me, and a couple of St Bernards whose basso-profundo woofing must almost register on the Richter scale.

Then there are the two dogs just around the corner that I regularly encounter on my walks.

The first is a ghastly little creature that seems to spend its day waiting to ambush passers-by. At the sound of approaching footsteps it rushes out, yapping furiously from behind a gate.

It darts back and forth in a frenzy as if wanting to tear me from limb to limb, but I suspect that if I opened the gate, it wouldn't know what to do. It would be like the dog that chases a car but loses all interest when the vehicle stops.

I reckon there’s a good case for treating dogs like this – ones that noisily harass people exercising their right to use the footpath – as a public nuisance, and penalising their owners accordingly. Not only do their pets disturb the peace, but their habit of rushing out unexpectedly (the dogs, I mean, not the owners) could pose a risk to elderly pedestrians who are frail or have a weak heart.

Some barks are easy on the ear, but the shrill yapping of angry little dogs seems calibrated to cause maximum annoyance.

I love dogs, but I would happily administer a sharp kick to this one.  The howl of pain and shock as it scuttled indoors would give me immense satisfaction.

But of course we shouldn’t blame dogs for the failings of the people in charge of them. The kick should more correctly be directed at the animal’s unseen owner, who does nothing to discourage the demented yapping.

For all I know the owner may smile indulgently when little Honey or Treasure or whatever it’s called rushes out as if to defend its property from orcs and goblins.

Doggy people can be strange like that. Behaviour that other people regard as infuriating may be seen by a dog’s doting owner as cute and endearing. Such people can be completely insensitive to other people’s feelings about their beloved pets.

There’s another reason why kicking the dog would be unfair. The animal displays aggression to passers-by not only because it’s allowed to get away with it, but because it’s almost certainly bored and neurotic and consequently bad-tempered.

You can usually tell at a glance whether a dog’s happy, and they’re generally happiest when they’ve got something useful to do.

The domestic dog wasn’t bred to sit around being fussed over, but to be of assistance to humans – to hunt, to herd or to guard against wild animals. But now we have an infinite variety of small dogs that were bred to look cute and keep human beings company.

I understand their appeal – they don’t eat a lot or take up a lot of space, they don’t need much exercise and they’re often affectionate, loyal and highly intelligent – but some of their owners are blind to the irritation they cause to others if they’re poorly controlled.

And since I’m writing about the irritating habits of over-indulgent owners, I should also mention the vile, anti-social offence of not cleaning up after dogs that defecate in public places. Some deluded owners seem to assume that treading in the occasional dog turd is a price the community is happy to pay for the sheer joy of having dogs around. Well, it’s not.

At this point, you’re possibly thinking: hang on, I mentioned two dogs around the corner, but told you about only one. What about the other?

Well, he’s very big and shaggy and I suspect quite old, and I always stop and talk to him.

Alerted to my approach by the furious yapping of the little dog I mentioned earlier, which lives next door to him, he pokes his great, hairy head over the fence and waits to be patted. I rub his ears and talk to him in dog language, in which I’m quite fluent, and when I go to leave he gently takes my hand in his enormous mouth as if imploring me to stay a bit longer.

If he could talk back, I’m sure he’d apologise for the appalling behaviour of his canine neighbour and explain that not all dogs are like that. And I’d assure him that I know that.

FOOTNOTE: At some risk to my reputation (such as it is), I have posted this column as it appeared in print. I have retained the paragraph in which I fantasise about kicking the noisy little dog around the corner, which provoked some flak from dog-lovers in the Stuff comments section. For the record, I should state that I wouldn't kick a small dog, no matter how irritating it was, although I admit the thought - just the thought, no more - sometimes appeals to me. When I read it now, I see why people took offence. Obviously I should have made it clear that the paragraph contained an element of journalistic hyperbole.