Dog-walkers' dirty menace

While watering the plants in the early mornings, I see dog-walkers on a stroll. Some with special and weird breeds that speak of owner's wealth, more than the fancy of keeping pets and showing it off. As faithful as these watchdogs are, they learn what their owners teach. Perhaps the first thing they teach the young puppy as soon as they bring home is ‘toilet training’. Initially, the owners wont mind the puppy ‘doing it’ anywhere inside their homes, just like their own kids and wont mind cleaning up the mess. They begin teaching the puppy to ‘do’ outside their homes, as they begin to grow up. I understand they learn quickly not to mess up ‘inside’ their owner's premise, but I wonder how they get so nicely trained up to do only in front of others’ houses on the streets!! It is the beautiful pets from well-to-do owners that get this sort of training as their brat sons or servants are those who usually take them out for ‘walks’. I have had to argue with such dog-walkers when they happily watch their beloved pets defecating right in front of our gate! You know what they say? One told me to build a compound wall up to the road, the other tells that the area outside the gate is the property of the corporation and hence he has every right to do anything there! Another says that it was not his dog's shit, pointing to that one-day-old mess and another two-day-old one.... and his dog sniffing there again!

I always wonder why they wont train their pets to defecate in front of their own gates!

Sometimes stray dogs are better than those pampered pets. In an educated manner they choose spots where no one walks, very much unlike male humans who ease themselves at any wall, anywhere and in the presence of anybody around! At least the dogs do not know ‘shame’.

People express their anguish in newspaper columns about such things as levying fine to the offending owners, but then who will do the watchdog work to do that, 24x7? This is not America or Europe where people follow the rules laid down by the administration be it anything. (How one wishes such a sense prevailed here too!) A dog should not be taken out without a leash means they should not take without a leash, whether somebody watches to punish or not. Or, if they take a dog out and if it defecates in public, it is the owner’s responsibility to clear it immediately. Here the same things are ‘different’! The whole city is theirs when they go on regular “dog-walking” errands.

One Andy Rooney said in a famous quote: “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue, unlike his owner! And for no fault of mine, I have had to wag my tongue for the wonderful toilet training of somebody’s pet!

Mysore was a renown city for cleanliness. If minds of pet-owners were not spoilt to that level, I would have got a more responsible reply from those two 'gentle-youngmen'. Who knows, they might want to watch with a vengeance their pets repeating the act in the coming days, in the same place!