I love this show !
I must admit that I never wanted a dog – It was part of the deal that had Deirdre emigrating from Tralee many moons ago!
“I’ll move to Cork as long as we can get a dog” she declared most definitely.
I agreed to this request in the genuine hope that she would forget about it in time. This strategy worked for about 9 months but unfortunately she did not forget and the day of reckoning finally arrived .. she ganged up on me with Ellen, my daughter and I started to receive emails at work with pictures of “rescue” dogs, each with very sad tales.
I gave in eventually and we made the trip to the West Cork Animal Rescue Centre and chose the poor quiet fella in the corner who already had the name “Bing”. He had short hair – we were told be wouldn’t grow much bigger and that he wouldn’t shed much and true to their word neither came true! He grew to quite a size and he has totally destroyed the house with his light dog hair.
Now, I have eventually grown to love him but he is definitely Deirdre’s dog. He is quite a funny fella and one particular quirk of his is that he loves watching TV – if there is an animal on a programme he gets particularly interested but he likes plenty of other stuff. As I write he is actually glued to the Mel Brooks war movie “To be or not to be” (check out the photo – he has good taste Mel Brooks is hilarious!)
In the 10 years that we have had him I have become quite used to most of what comes with the whole package of having a dog except for … you guessed it, dog mess!
It’s bad enough that the garden is destroyed (grass cutting was always a pain but now it is a very perilous operation) but the worst moments are when we are out walking him and he decides to mortify you in public. To be fair to him he reserves this embarrassing practice for grassy areas but I absolutely cringe when he has his moment of glory (sometimes I think he does it deliberately to me) just as someone is passing by.
They never say anything as they pass but you know exactly what they are thinking as they pass: “Disgusting, and I hope they clean up the mess that their dog has made“. Of course they are right to think this and quite correctly there are laws to back this up.
According to the 1997 litter laws – It is not an offence to allow a dog under your control to foul in a public place, however it is an offence to let your dog foul and fail to remove and dispose of the foul subsequently.
The horrible reality behind this law is that when you walk your dog in public places you must be armed with your little plastic bag and when your precious four legged one decides to do his business then you have some awful business to do. This is one of the most horrible things to do and when it happens I insist that the ownership laws are applied strictly, “Deirdre – He is your dog!”
As horrible as this task is, it makes sense and as law abiding citizens we need to be fully responsible.
Quite simply..it’s your dog, so its your mess and you are expected to clean it up.
Imagine if every mess was sorted out in this way..
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 