POOP FIGHT

There’s a poop fight in a nearby neighborhood.  I could be more delicate (subtle) but the fight amongst the homeowners is about the neighbors that pick up their dog’s poop versus the neighbors with dogs who don’t pick up their dog’s poop. As an intellectual [dog] and lover of history, this ‘war’ reminds of the Hatfield and McCoy feud; the Bolshevik have and have not revolution; the Belushi-fraternity food fight in Animal House.  … But I digress.

As a dog, I understand the concept of eating dog poop but I don’t understand the purpose of picking it up.  I asked my foster mom Jet, who rescued me from a Texas kill shelter, to explain the issue to me.

“Essentially,” she began, “some neighborhoods or gated communities have a homeowners’ association or HOA which has a book of rules that people must follow if they live in that area.” Jet continued, “In order to keep the lawns more pristine, an HOA (or their city ordinance) will dictate that residents bag their dog’s poop and discard it in a trash can. My friend’s neighborhood has a scoop-your-dog-poop rule but some dog owners have chosen to ignore it, causing some frustration for those that comply with it.”

In dog terms, it would be like all the dogs in a public dog park agreeing to use the same water bowl and, therefore, also agreeing not to poop in the water. However, a select few of the dogs ignore the rule and leave their business in the water, ruining it for the other canines. (Yes, dogs may eat their poop but even a dog prefers to drink poop-free water.)

What would a dog do in such a situation? Probably gang up and bite the dogs that poop in the water. What would a human do? Jet says, “Always give a human the benefit of the doubt… once.  Which means you assume they don't know the rule and you take the time to tell them. After that, expect compliance.”

I can relate to this approach.  Even dogs have playground protocol that a puppy or non-socialized mill dog would need to be taught. So perhaps someone is new to the neighborhood or is a renter (not a buyer) and the owner of the property hasn’t given them a copy of the HOA rules to read. So should all dwellers (owners and renters alike) turn in a signed document, along with their contract, that they have read and will agree to HOA and/or city rules? It makes sense. If you do this, you can’t plead ignorance. On the other hand, doing so sounds a bit like over-legislation of something that really just requires better communication.

Jet, who writes and designs an HOA newsletter once added a reminder in an issue to remind everyone to pick up their dog’s poop. She must have pissed someone off because she found bagged poop on her doorstep the morning after the newsletter was distributed. (The dirty dog.) I found this perplexing and sad. Even a dog would be more civil.

So here’s my advice for the week: humans, though more intellectually advanced than dogs, could clearly learn some lessons about how to behave better than dogs whenever they disagree. If you don’t want to scoop your dog’s poop in a neighborhood (or city) that requires it then move, otherwise, shut the bark up and pick it up. 

SPINAL DYSFUNCTION

Frat is my acerbic buddy. It should come as no surprise to my readers that Frat is a cat. He is perpetually pissed off and ornery. And, as much as I hate to admit it, he is almost always right.

(See my rough sketch of Frat below, right.)

One day, we were laughing about the BMW car commercial where the adorable little girl, her mom and their pet Boxer jump into their SUV for an errand. The little girl peaks over the backseat to the directional screen in the dashboard to read where they are going: Dr. Smith, veterinarian, for Neutering. The innocent child asks her mother, “Mommy, what is neutering?”

The dog, smarter than the humans realized, knows what’s coming and jumps out the window. If you haven’t seen the commercial go to this link. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlvK-SRKdII) Since I’m a female dog, I find it hilarious that the male dog doesn’t have the stomach to face what is coming and runs when this tough decision is upon him.

I shared my opinion about the Boxer with Frat who immediately pointed out that dogs (and cats) aside, he felt that it was humans, not pets, that wouldn’t face (or make) tough decisions. I conceded that he seemed correct, but being a dog, I argued that humans just had too many choices today that they didn’t have in the past. Frat, always the contrarian, quipped in his amusing but offensive filter-free, feline mouth that humans fail to make hard decisions because they have a malfunctioning spine, i.e., “They don’t have one anymore.” He elaborated.

“They dodge the truth,” Frat elaborated. Humans don’t want to investigate all the facts of the Benghazi debacle because they don’t want to admit they made some mistakes. They smooth off the rough edges about America being in debt up to their eyeballs because they don’t want to face the fact that they outspend what they make. They (humans) didn’t read the 2,000-page Obamacare health bill before passing it because doing so might imply they disagreed with what the President inserted into it. They (humans) sweep hard statistics under my kitty litter because they can’t deal with talking about it. For example, that the Dallas-Fort Worth area euthanizes 500 adoptable dogs and cats A DAY and 33 shelters in Texas still use gas chambers to euthanize our kind.

Now you understand why I avoid controversial conversations with Frat. Having said that, there was a lot of truth to his remarks.

America, in general, is still the best place in the world to live, even for a dog. However, part of what makes this country so grand is that the majority of humans living in it have the spine to face, not run from, difficult decisions even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient to do so.

So here’s my lesson of the week for all my human readers: choose one personal or work-related issue you’ve yet to face. Take 60 seconds to write down what it has cost you to play hide and seek with this issue and what you gain by delaying this decision. Then, in the words of Frat the Cat, “Grow a pair and deal with it.”