Taking on irresponsible pet owners

Marc Hinze writes:

IT is New Year’s Eve once again. I am sitting on my stoep, listening to the New Year’s parties all around, the music, the noise, the fire works…

I cannot predict the future, but I can predict this: In the edition of the Vryheid Herald published directly after the New Year, I will once again read all the complaints about fireworks being let off, about pets scared out off their wits, running away from home, to be found at the SPCA kennels, if they are lucky, or never again, if they are not so lucky…

Once again, I will hear all about the irresponsible people putting the match or the lighter to those fire crackers that go bang! And whizz! And pop! And how their inconsiderate actions scare poor animals out of their wits and make them go crazy, and make them run away from their homes….

But…never will I hear about those irresponsible pet owners who let their pets yap and bark and yowl away at every innocent stranger, real or imagined, who happens to walk by on the street outside, 365 nights a year. When all responsible non-pet-owners are trying to get some sleep in preparation for the next day’s hard work.

Never will I hear about all those irresponsible pet owners who cannot spare a few Rands to purchase a tranquilizer pill to give to their poor, suffering pets that have to listen to the whizzing and the banging on New Years’ Eve, despite the fact that everyone knows that there will be whizzing and banging on New Years’ Eve…

Never will I hear about the irresponsible pet owners who are so far away on expensively purchased holidays at the coast, or so busy spending huge amounts of money on parties for their friends and neighbours, that they cannot afford a fence or a gate to keep their precious pets contained from running away in fright of the whizzing and the banging, away from harm on the street from rapidly rotating tyres and from the attentions of irate neighbours who don’t own any pets, but still spend many hours awake, trying in vain to ignore the yapping and yowling of the neighbourhood’s pets, ripping away at garbage bags left out for collection on the sidewalks…

Let’s not spend too much time considering the actions of those loving pet owners who choose to keep pets, yet are not considerate enough to keep those pets from yapping and yowling the neighbourhoods awake every night of the year. Let’s forget the roaming dogs and cats ripping open rubbish bags left out on the street early in the morning every week, ready for collection as instructed by the authorities, because their loving owners cannot be bothered to keep them contained by fences or gates, or indoors…

Let us rather focus on the poor, innocent pets run over on streets by evil automobile operators operating their vehicles on the streets, going to work or home, trying to mind their own business. Let us rather concentrate on the poor, frightened pets that are taken to the SPCA kennels from the streets, frightened out of their wits, never to be enquired after or collected by their loving, considerate owners, because they have been chased there by irresponsible people lighting a firework, making a noise for a few seconds, once or twice a year…Let us rather condemn the actions of those irresponsible individuals leaving their garbage bags out on the sidewalks the previous night, rather than 5 minutes before the arrival of the garbage collection crew in the morning, which is predictable to within an approximate timeframe of 12 to 24 hours…

In other words, true to South African tradition, let us concentrate on making mountains out of molehills, and ignore the real mountains…