Lassie Stay Home

Your dog is your child and like children everywhere, more darling to you than he is to the general public. Loves blinds us to all faults, but for those not on a honeymoon, vision is 20-20.

My grandparents on both sides of the family and both sides of the Atlantic were dog-breeders: Wirehair terriers on my Irish Grandfather's side, Boston Terriers in the case of my American maternal grandfather. I am no hater of dogs, but inconsiderate owners breed dog haters and nuts.

Anyone who has been savaged or terrified by one's animal will justifiably resent the experience. Let me give you an example. I was once sent to work temp in a non-profit that rehabbed drug addicts. Although I feared for my safety from their unstable client base, little did I realize that the real danger would be their beloved pooch, Libby.

This golden retriever, a fair-sized dog, took an instant dislike to me and began growling at me. Since I was there to do a job, not wind up in an emergency room, I was relieved when they decided that they could dispense with my services. I suppose the animal had been primed to hate strangers by the many crazy people that he was exposed to daily, but this would have been no comfort had I been left unable to work with no one willing to pay my medical bills. A lawsuit would undoubtedly expose me to blacklisting and the charge that I had an attitude.

And dog owners can be pretty slow to attribute danger to Fang. After leaving church in Sound Beach, Long Island thirty-five years ago, I was greeted with a huge milling crowd that included police. A small girl was hysterical. Her poodle puppy had accidentally strayed onto the property next door and a neighbor's vicious guard dog had seized it in his teeth and shaken it to death. The dog was still shaking the puppy in its jaws when armed police arrived to put it down. The uncomprehending German Shepherd owners whose dog had been involved in several prior incidents over several years in this child-filled suburb felt aggrieved for sure. I am sure they would have exonerated the dog if it had been the child instead. I have never forgotten the horror, and I am sure the now-grown child hasn't either.

In New York City, a couple that had been breeding a rare variety of war-dog was charged with manslaughter after it ate the next door neighbor alive. Less extreme, was a New York neighbor of mine whose unleashed Rottweiler nearly drove a phobic neighbor in front of oncoming traffic. In both cases the owners had wonderful rationalizations to prove the neighbor wrong, the dog right. The judge has his own ideas.

Don't forget that you are at work to work. Your boss will not make your problems his. He does not care that your dog is lonely, nor will he wish to open himself up to lawsuits. Distractions come right out of your boss's pocket and he won't pay you to be entertained or feel fulfilled. Although parents have some basic legal protections, pet owners have none. Give the boss the impression that your dog comes first, and it will be Lassie go home, and owner after him.