Pet owners push for education component in Ridgewood
Thursday February 14, 2013, 5:31 PM
BYÂ DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood residents who own court-declared potentially dangerous dogs will be required to pay a $700 licensing fee and be subject to monthly inspections by the village’s health department and Tyco Animal Control.
Ridgewood resident Jeffrey Ball, president of the New Jersey Federation of Dog Clubs, addresses the Village Council.
But council members, who on Wednesday unanimously approved the much-publicized and scrutinized ordinance to establish the fee, said they will take advantage of offers received in recent weeks and push an educational aspect to supplement the new licensing structure.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/191287691_Pet_owners_push_for_education_component_in_Ridgewood.ht
I’m glad this was passed. Most of the dog owners in town are irresponsible. They buy a pet, and treat it like a peice of furniture. The buy one of those invisible electric fences, which turns an otherwise nice animal into a raving growling threatening animal by making it ‘territorial’. Just take a walk around and these little twerp sized dogs run up to their border growling an hissing. If the power failed and one of these growling runts tried to bite me, I’d gladly take the opportunity to ‘drop kick’ it back onto its property. Generally a dog will ‘mirror’ the attitude of its owner. Chances are, an agressive growling dog means the owner is a douchebag too.
Many of the new arrivals are douchebags and the dogs are just like their owners.
We have an electric fence that’s no longer active, however our yard is fenced in. Our dogs have gotten out of our yard. They are interested in rabbits, not other dogs. They bark at other dogs, especially when the owners allow those dogs to freely roam. That said, they’ve often encountered dogs and their owners without incident.
In my opinion, a dog that barks at another dog doesn’t mean that there’s a problem with the dog or their owner. Barking is what dogs do. It’s not immediately a preclude to an attack. So unless someone has a non-barking dog, like a Shiba Inu, then every dog that barks at another dog is dangerous and every owner is a douchbag. If I’m following the line of reasoning correctly.
If my dog were to be injured simply because someone was terrorized by a barking chihuahua, they better make sure they “drop kick” me as well. The last thing they would have to worry about would be the bite from our dogs. Our companion animals are part of our family and would be protected both physically and legally as such.
I tried to find the list of court determined “potentially dangerous” dogs, but couldn’t find a listing by specific breed.
That said, couldn’t all dogs be considered, “potentially dangerous”. The behavior of one’s dog is still prompted by instinct, no matter how well behaved and domesticated we believe they are. I don’t think anyone could say, with absolute certainty, that their dog would never bite. A frightened, ill or injured animal may act unpredictably, often before we ever realize there’s a problem.
If I were to take a guess, I would say that the “potentially dangerous” list includes breeds such as Rottweilers, Pitt Bull Terriers, German Shepherds, Dobermans, etc. Yet aren’t these some of the same breeds used as rescue dogs? The same breeds used in law enforcement? Commended for their heroism during the 9/11 attacks?
A Pomeranian could be just as “potentially dangerous” as a Pitt Bull under the right circumstances. Are these breeds really more dangerous or are these the breeds most favored by the media when an attack on a human or another animal occurs?