I adopted a dog in 1997, the year I moved to Oregon. I’ve seen Bend change from an extremely dog-friendly town to an ambivalently dog-tolerant city. I like dogs, and generally like people who own dogs. I also understand that there has to be limits on where dogs can be as the population gets denser.
But last Saturday as I participated in the Pole Pedal Paddle event, I was incredulous and angry to see a group of dog owners sitting on the riverbank along the boat course, allowing their dogs to swim in the water in the path of paddlers competing in the race! Standing on the Columbia Street bridge, I saw these dogs swim out on the race course multiple times – in fact, at least one time, they were after a tennis ball thrown by one of their owners.
The people who participate in PPP have worked too hard and invested too much to have their efforts thwarted by a bunch of careless dog owners. This kind of behavior gives all dog owners a bad reputation and will undoubtedly lead to further restrictions on dogs in the future.
Come on, people – THINK!!
Lia Vella, Dayvill
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 4, 2008.
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Agree,dogs are make great pets. Dogs only do what humans lead them to do. Obnoxious dogs usually have obnoxious owners. I suggest that any human being who purchases or acquires a dog should be required to attend a class on the “Do’s and Don’ts” of owning a dog. Example: Dogs chasing wild life and live stock ie horses, cows, goats etc. Voice and lease control, carry dogging poop bags and latex gloves etc. I’ll leave it there and see what others say.
Cheers
I’m leaving Bend and one thing I won’t miss is all the dogs. Which of course means all the dog OWNERS who let their dogs bark incessantly or who think that everyone else loves dogs like they do and are happy to encounter them when we are out hiking or running or walking down the street. We don’t.