Time to Get Started

I’ve been meaning to start this blog for some time, but it seems like it always takes an extraordinary event to spur action. Like the awful intersection about which people say, “there needs to be a stoplight here or someone is going to get killed,” the stoplight never gets put in place until someone is actually mowed down.

The stoplight in this case is proper dog handling. And the sad, unfortunate victim is Tinkerbell, the tiny, beloved Chihuahua who was frequently seen unpretentiously peeking out of a handbag, looking like a dwarf deer, her enormous brown eyes darting about curiously, yet cautiously.

What happened seems to have begun innocently enough: a group of dog owners were walking through the west side of Stuyvesant Square Park, near the Rutherford Street entrance, in the shadow of St. George’s Cathedral. They were approached by a German Shorthair Pointer, a new member of the community, an eight year old rescue from the country. The dog was acquired following the death in the same household of another German Shorthair, Buster, a long-time, three-legged cancer survivor with a lovely disposition. All dogs involved were on leash. Two of the three dogs in the first group excitedly approached the Pointer, who pulled forward to greet them, all of them familiar with one another. However, the Pointer spied the tiny Tinkerbell and apparently mistook her for park wildlife, grabbing her with lightening quickness, and shaking her as if she were a squirrel to be dispatched. A passing dog owner attempted to intervene and managed to kick the Pointer into dropping the seriously wounded Tinkerbell. She was rushed by car to Gramercy Veterinary Hospital, but bled to death from a bite into her heart before she could be saved.

The net result of all this is several broken, shattered hearts; anger; finger pointing; and questions about how to keep such a tragedy from occurring again. This is where this blog gets involved.

As a dog owner, walker and behavior modification specialist, I spend my day watching people mishandle their dogs. One might suggest that so long as no one treats their pet cruelly, they have a right to do as they please. Not so. By virtue of being a dog owner and, of necessity, walking that dog in public, one is forced into interactions with other individuals, dog owners and dogs themselves. Therefore, as there are ethical rules that govern our interactions with each other, there needs to be an understanding of ethics involved in handling our dogs and interacting with others handling dogs. This goes not only for dog owners, but for individuals without dogs who would like to interact with those who are handling dogs.