I’ve been walking the Earth for five and half decades, and there has never been a day among them where I did not have at least one dog at home.
Puppa Baby – a big, cuddly mixed breed – was my first dog. My grandma loved to tell the story of how when I was 4, my 3-year-old stepsister and I wandered away from home and ended up a mile or so down Dixie Highway at the old King’s Department Store in West Palm Beach, Fla.
We were found in relatively short order because Puppa had walked with us, keeping herself between the kids and the fast-moving cars, then waited patiently at the door for us to come out of the store. That’s not something just an animal or a pet would do; that’s what family does.
Because my stepfather loved reading J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, our next dog was a Beagle named Bilbo. Energetic and playful, he was perfect for an 8-year-old boy.
After we moved to Asheville in the fourth grade, my stepfather and I drove to the store late one night. Bilbo pushed open the screen door and chased after us. He only got as far as the road before he ran into a vehicle; a 24-hour veterinarian couldn’t save his broken little body.
Omar was also hit with Bilbo that night but survived, and Lord knows he was my all-time favorite. Part German shepherd and part miniature doberman, Omar looked like a full-grown black shepherd the size of a Corgi. He ran next to my bike everywhere I pedaled during the day, then slept at the foot of my bed every night. He was truly my best friend.
The blood stain on the dirt road near our house, where another vehicle ended Omar’s life less than a year after Bilbo passed, didn’t go away until after we moved. The missing part of my heart, however, has never gone away.
Those incidents burned inside me as I grew up, and I vowed to never let my children have to go through such unnecessary sadness. That’s why when my family bought a home in Bellview more than 18 years ago, the first thing we did was put up a fence.
Some folks like to say fences don’t just keep people out, they keep people in, but that’s not a bad thing when it comes to our four-legged friends. You can’t prevent illness and old age, but because I have always had a fence at home or kept our pets on a leash, my kids have never had to cry after one of their family members was hit and killed by a car.
All that made it somewhat odd when I returned to Cherokee County and saw dogs, many wearing tags, wandering through intersections downtown, crossing the four-lane highway and basically doing everything but staying in their own yard. I’ve never needed a leash law to keep my animals under control, but obviously not every pet owner feels the same way.
Before publishing the report on dangerous dogs that’s on the front page of this edition of the Cherokee Scout, we offered a simple poll question on whether local residents would support a leash law. Two-thirds of those responding backed a leash law, yet the topic doesn’t seem like one that has ever gained much momentum here, and many candidates in the past have used their opposition to a leash law as a primary reason to vote for them.
I’m not one for making too many mandates, but you may feel a lot differently about a leash law if your loved one was brutally attacked by a neighbor’s canines, or if it was your beloved dog laying dead on the side of the road. Especially in light of Thursday being National Dog Day, we owe our furry friends – and ourselves – much better than that.