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Unfunny Dogs
DdGS CERTAINLY seem to have captured their share of news-space over the past year or so in Rappahannock County. We’ve had problems with the dog fund and whether fees are high enough to maintain what amounts to a form of farmers’insurance. WeVe had field trials and fox hunts, and hound races. We’ve had some laughs, and some angry words.
For a newspaper that does business in the country, anything having to do with dogs is almost as surefire for reader interest as items having to do with people’s children. (Indeed, we sometimes wonder if people make a sharp distinction between the two.)
But 4here’s one aspect of this dog business which no one finds funny. Questions that arose in connection with the county’s Dog Fund illustrate what we mean. Dogs running loose and under no one’s control, and especially large and vicious dogs, are not a matter solely to be left to the whim of individual owners. It’s bad enough when these animals attack and destroy a farmer’s livestock; when people themselves are the victims, it’s past time for something to be done — before there are truly serious consequences.
VIRGINIA LAW, AS was found during the dog fund controversy, can be exasperating where proper dog controls are involved. Often archaic and reflecting attitudes of an earlier time, the laws sometimes seem to give dogs and their owners license to run amok in the community. Surely even a rural county such as Rappahannock cannot longer tolerate such irresponsibility.
Let’s be kind to animals and take care of man’s best friend, by all means. But let’s don’t get so foolishly sentimental about Fido or Fang or Rover or Spot that we wake up one day to find a tragedy on our hands.
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