Irresponsible Owner Breaks Writer's Heart (Again)

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

20 May 2009 09:49 AM

I was driving home from work yesterday and I saw something that had me pretty upset: a little white dog tied up to a car antenna in the middle of a parking lot. My first thought was: what a dumb place to tie your dog.

But it isn't just stupid, it's irresponsible. It endangers the dog.

Would you tie a child to a car and leave them there while you do your shopping or run back into the house for something you forgot? What makes you think a dog wouldn't get spooked or distracted and try to dart out into the driving lanes? A car antenna isn't strong enough to hold back a dog who's pulling with all his might. It's way too easy for that dog to get loose and get lost.

And then I started thinking about pet kidnapping. Way to make it easy for somebody to take your dog! Anyone could walk up to the car and take the dog -- to hold it for ransom, try to resell it to a new owner, or sell it to a research lab.

I find myself writing/thinking/saying the same refrain over and over: a pet is a living thing. It depends on you the owner for survival. As a pet owner, you have a responsibility to keep that animal safe from harm.

And then I had the worst thought of all: what if the owner DID want to get rid of their dog, and just tied it to some random car and drove off? That's the most heartbreaking mental picture of all. But it's not impossible to imagine. We've had people drop boxes of kittens at the cats-only vet, or just dump their cats behind the building.

Car and dog were gone when I went back to check. That's something of a relief. Still, I wish more pet owners would treat their animals less as things that they own and more as members of the family.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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