Dog Days of Summer

On a lazy summer afternoon, my two middle boys took their fishing poles and headed to the pond in the open space. These are my two nature loving boys who would rather be fishing, catching frogs, and building forts than inside watching TV or playing video games. The freedom of long days with no school to interrupt their adventures is the thing they most love about summer. And I love hearing all about it when they come in sweaty and happy to tell me about their fun.
On this particular day, they were peacefully fishing and enjoying the quiet around the pond. Suddenly, they were interrupted by two big Golden Retrievers barreling through the reeds and a woman who apparently belonged to them. She walked up to the pond and told the boys that they would have to move along now because her dogs like to swim in this pond. The boys were confused by her order, but because it was an adult, albeit a crazy one, they acquiesced. One boy says to the other, “Let’s go on the other side.” To which the rude woman replies, “No, my dogs like to swim in the whole pond.” Bummer, peaceful fishing day ruined so that two dogs can frolic in the taxpayer maintained open space at the expense of two crestfallen boys who just spent their entire allowance on night crawlers.
The boys come home and as I pour the lemonade they tell me what happened and now I know that I have heard it all. The dog days of summer haven’t even arrived yet! There are very few children playing outside at all anymore, the fun of roaming around outside all day has been replaced by the “playdate.” But, that is another column for another day. What is going on when we tell children to go inside and stop playing so that the dogs can have the run of the outside? When did dogs become more important than human beings?
I am thinking this is the same woman whose dogs accosted me in the open space a few months ago. They were off the leash and ran toward my leashed dog and attacked, biting my leg in the process. She was not in the best shape and had no control over her dogs and had the nerve to tell me to leave the open space because dogs are off the leash there. I thought we had something called a leash law, but apparently that only applies to certain nonspecial people. I call these people relativists as opposed to absolutists. Absolutists believe the rules apply to all the people, all the time as a common denominator of society. Relativists believe the rules apply to the OTHER people…not to them because they and the horse the rode in on, are special.
My boys have a dog of their own so they recognize that a dog is man’s best friend, but they were a bit outspoken about how a couple of dogs had taken away their summer fun. Well, I have since learned that there are more dogs in San Francisco than children and while you might think that is due to lack of money, think again. San Francisco boasts some of the highest per capita spending on luxury items, spas, and therapy. So, it is not money that is the problem, but interest. People are far more interested in having a pet that makes them feel good than the work and worry that comes from raising a child.
In 2008, 45 billion dollars were spent on pet care. That is more than the gross national product of 132 countries in the world. The recession has barely made a dent in the sales of pet goods. For some reason, people are willing to fork out the cash for pets that they are not willing to spend on having children. Think about this, it would cost the same to send my dog to daycare as it would to send my newborn, human infant!
Lately, I see dogs everywhere, much more than I see babies. There are doggie daycares, doggie bakeries, and doggie spas. I see dogs in the grocery store, for crying out loud. Doesn’t that violate some sort of health codes? I have seen dogs riding in the shopping carts at Safeway. When we moved into our house I mistakenly thought there was a baby across the street due to the stroller on the porch…no, it belongs to the dog! The parks and schools all have signs posted “No Dogs Allowed” but somehow that doesn’t apply to all the dogs. Every time I go to a baseball or soccer game there are dogs there. Some dogs in town are special and thus granted a go to the park free pass?
We were in the city one day going to eat lunch in North Beach. Outside of a restaurant a women was using a napkin to clean up a very messy doggie accident. I guarantee you if I let my toddler run around the city diaperless and have accidents in front of a business and then smear it around with a napkin, someone would call the authorities. But, sadly, the dog people got all the free passes. I am assuming that this is the reason people are having dogs, not children. You can let your dog get away with a lot of things that people would have little tolerance for in children. You only have to train dogs once to follow basic commands and they don’t need constant guidance and direction, just a pat on the head and a walk now and then. They aren’t going to ask for the car or a college education and they don’t outlive you.
Generation K9 with its human names, human clothes and human rights will never contribute to social security or hold a job. They will never help support an aging population. Someday we are going to miss the children who were replaced by dogs; we will also miss their tax dollars. When we choose to let dogs play instead of kids and spend billions of dollars on pets instead of people, we are saying about what we value? John Kennedy once said that “children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” It seems to me that the future is going to the dogs.