People who feed strays

The BBQ Pit
1

I don’t post here much, so excuse me if I miss some conventions. I really tried to make this suitable for some other forum but only the Pit will do.

We have a serious stray dog situation where I live. They are just everywhere. Animal Control says they will charge $50 per dog and I won’t get any proof of how the animal was dealt with. :rolleyes:

Now, some of my stupid neighbours are feeding them! Are they taking them in? Making sure they get their shots? Providing vet care? Will they make themselves responsible for whatever damage those dogs do? No, they just feed them.

A few months ago I had a serious run in with one of those neighbours. One stray jumped at me from under their car and barked viciously at me. I held my own and kicked the dog away. I asked the neighbours to take control of their animal. They, of course, denied all responsibility. “The dog sleeps under the car but it is not ours, there is nothing we can do”. I pointed at the food plate in their driveway. Never saw that dog in that house again. It now lives a few houses down.

I can’t walk the kids to one of the parks in our community because these vicious dogs are there. I can fight them alright by myself, but not with two kids in tow. The association says there is nothing they can do, because they don’t belong to any house. And that they can’t afford to pay for animal control.

I had learned to live with this. Pissed, but wth.

Cut to last week. I was driving to the public beach with my kids. It is also littered with stray dogs. I see this stupid lady pulled to the side of the road, with a huge bag of dog food in her trunk feeding 20 or so dogs that had surrounded her car. She has to be a regular, then.

Pissed again, but learning to live with it.

Now my wife tells me that the other day, on one of the local TV channels, they had this segment about this semi-hobo hippie loser that lives near the beach where I take my kids and also feeds strays. They were portraying him as a hero!. A kind hearted man who takes care of those poor little creatures.

Well, fuck the whole lot of you! I hope you find your kids mangled to a bloody pulp by one of these dogs. May they shit on your yard and infest you with all kinds of parasites. May some dickie politico gets annoyed at you and sue the last penny of your sorry pockets because one of “your” dogs looked at him the wrong way.

I love dogs as much as the next guy, but if I am going to take care of one, I will go all the way. Feeding strays is not loving them. It is making life shitty for other people.

2

All the other stuff you wished on them seemed…well, I dunno if FAIR is the word, but at least it represented punishment directed towards the person who offended you.

Wishing ill on the fruit of their loins seems a little overboard. It’s not the kids’ fault that mom or dad is softhearted towards strays, or elects a form of helping that doesn’t agree with you.

3

How dare those animals not be under strict control of a human! Those evil compassionate souls lowering the property values in my burbclave! How dare they?!

4

If you loved dogs, you would call Animal Control and have the stray dog taken away. There is a small chance it’ll be adopted. Even if they euthanize it, it would be better than allowing it to starve to death, give birth/sire more unwanted dogs, and/or become feral.

Your neighbor isn’t really helping the matter but neither are you.

5

I’m guessing that Animal Control doesn’t operate in quite the same manner down Puerto Rico way.

6

You are right. Those kids don’t need to pay for their parents faults. So let them get mangled themselves by someone else’s “proteges”. That would make it so much funnier.

7

?Porque no?

8

At $50 a pop it would cost me about two grands to clean the beach and about $500 to clean my neighourhood. And I would get no indication as to what happened to them. They would probably just dump them on someone else’s backyard for all I know. Still, if I had them, I would. But I don’t so I can’t. Cursing at them, though, is certainly within my budget.

9

Does this mean “Why not?”

If so, I based my assumption on the fact that Sapo’s post made it sounds as if there are a lot more stray dogs in his part of the world than there are in mine. I got the impression that Animal Control, or its equivalent, doesn’t have the capacity to deal with all of them.

10

har har. I have no beef with the dogs. It is the humans who feed them, that I am complaining about. If they like wild dogs, let them wild. If they want them as pets, keep them as pets. Feeding them so they stick around being a nuisance to their neighbours but not being responsible for them, is a bit of a problem. Think of your neighbour keeping a couple of carcasses on his front yard to feed the cute flies and rats.

11

I hear a lot of cursing at soft hearted neighbors, but not much directed at the real villains here, your local government who won’t fund animal control at a level so they can do an effective job. Methinks your ire is a little misplaced.

12

Well if that’s the case, maybe they can cross over from friend to food chain. That’s another way to deal with them. Just sayin’

13

How about dropping a line to that same television station with your view of the matter. Keep it level headed and calm - you’ll come out smelling like a rose and you may guilt the local authorities to do something about it.

14

Ultimately, you are right. Life in the islands, though… well, let’s just say I am not hoping the authorities will rise to the occasion. They can barely keep some amount of asphalt on our roads, I would be surprised if they bothered with stray dogs.

Plus, these animals are visibly diseased and quite aggressive. Why would someone want that animal around, risking themselves and the liability of being associated with them?. The only “logical” explanation I can conceive is that think of it as protection racket. They figure that if they feed it, it won’t attack them.

15

I am not above that :wink:

These animals, though, they are nasty and diseased and all around yuck.

16

Note to self: [del]Vacation in Puerto Rico[/del]

17

Now, THAT sounds more like a plan. I still don’t think the authorities will be up to it, but maybe it will hit the right note with some people.

Maybe the people I should be trying to reach are some Animal Rescue League or something of the sort. I have to check if there is something like that around.

18

I wouldn’t go that far. What you can scratch of your list is “Villas del Mar Hau”. That’s an inn here in PR. Their beach is run by two strays fed by, wait for it, the owner of the inn. If we all went in the water at the same time, the stupid dogs would come and mess our stuff. We were constantly throwing rocks at them to keep them away. We are never going back there.

Most “balnearios” or public beaches are kept stray-free by their managers. And most wild beaches are too far from anything to have dogs living there. Unmanaged beaches near the towns are the only ones where this is an issue. And even there, most strays are smart enough to keep a safe distance from people. It is only when they are used to be fed that they get too bold

19

You know, there are lots and lots of soft-hearted animal lovers with lots and lots of money, even if they’re not in your neighbourhood. With a bit of organizing, I bet a “Save the poor stray dogs of Puerto Rico” campaign would be pretty effective in North America. (Look how the Katrina strays were snapped up!)

20

I’m glad you feel that way. I don’t think alot of my fellow statesiders would understand that, but when times are tough, things get more real. I didnt mean it as an insult in any case.