This past Wednesday, like any other day barring torrential rain, I took a lunchtime walk. I had the baby strapped to me, his arms and legs waving wildly each time the train passed. I had our dog, Gina, on her leash. It was sunny and mild and beautiful, one of the first real hints of the coming spring. Another dog ran over from across the street and attacked Gina. Two vet visits later and Gina is on three prescriptions and living the cone life until the large gash in the side of her head heals.
I would guess – and certainly hope – that this was a first for that other dog and owner. I assume the dog had never attacked anyone before. I assume the owner was really shaken up by the whole experience. He’s probably well aware, just as I am, that the baby and I could have been attacked too. I can’t imagine how I would feel if it had been my dog that had attacked someone.
But here’s the thing: Gina is very unlikely to attack anybody, because we keep her on a leash while we’re out with her, and we keep her in a fenced yard when she’s outside at home. She simply doesn’t have the opportunity to attack anybody who just happens to be walking by. We follow these extremely easy laws, which are in place for the safety of those around us.
We frequently encounter other dogs not on leash, and everyone always says the same thing. “Oh it’s okay, he’s friendly,” they say. A more accurate statement, though, would be “he has had only friendly interactions in the past.” Dog behavior is never truly predictable, especially in an interaction with an unfamiliar dog. It just isn’t safe, for your dog or for anyone else, to let your dog off leash in an area where others aren’t expecting to encounter an off-leash pet.
We see far too much of people not caring about the harm they may cause until it has happened. The main road going through our neighborhood has a bus-only lane along the right side, and every single time we drive on it we see at least one car zooming down that lane. Those drivers aren’t going to think they’re hurting anybody until they literally do hurt someone.
We go for a lot of walks. Every day I see drivers staring at their phones. I see people running red lights. We have close calls crossing the street at designated crosswalks, because a driver isn’t paying attention. Just yesterday a car came within inches of hitting our stroller, because the driver didn’t even look out his window before trying to turn at a red light. People literally driving multi-ton death machines have decided it’s okay to sometimes just not look at where they’re driving them. The thing about close calls is that sometimes they aren’t close calls.
We saw this all-too-frequently with covid: people in the news, trying to spread awareness because they hadn’t taken it seriously until it happened to them. The “I didn’t think it was a big deal, but then I wound up on a ventilator” people. The “I didn’t think it was a big deal, but then my mom died” people.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m really tired of waiting for every individual to experience their personal tragedy before they start caring about others. A person shouldn’t have to experience something themselves to understand that their actions can have consequences. Please, please behave as if you care about those around you.
Leash your dogs. Get off your phones while you’re driving. Obey traffic laws. Stay home if you’re sick. Don’t drink if you know you’re going to be driving home. Here is your opportunity to change your future, to prevent yourself from having the tragic experience. You can choose now to not have a future where your dog attacks somebody. You can choose now to not kill a pedestrian because you were on your phone. This is your opportunity to not be on the news. For God’s sake, keep your future self from going to jail and living with a lifetime of guilt. As a treat.
This isn’t about living in fear, it’s about living in care. You can’t prevent everything bad from happening, but you can consciously choose to make safer choices, and the more individuals choose to make safer choices, the safer the world becomes for us all.
Denise Resting 
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