Whatever happened to …

… the barking?

The original topic for this post has been delayed for a week because I watched this news report this morning and just had to ask for your thoughts before I forgot to …

This is a real, no kidding, news report from CTV Montreal and picked up by their national news feed.

No barking sign at Montreal dog park unleashes fury from pet owners

As noted in the article, this has happened before but didn’t last for long.

Jaimie does not approve. He might give a little whine but that’s not OK either.

Like many of the people in the video, it seems unintuitive to me. That’s one of the things that dogs do. Look it up.

If you take a look at any living thing, when they get excited and are enjoying themselves, they let their feelings be known. For dogs, barking is just about it. Want a human example? Go by any elementary school at recess time.

Even schools that have neighbours don’t put up signs that say “No laughing at recess”.

It’s not like dogs can read the signs either. It’s there for the owners. Just like the “Pick up after your dog” which is actually quite doable and, quite frankly, not something that all of the dog owners do.

And the dog park was there first. Yesterday, we went for a nice afternoon drive and went through South Buxton. It’s home to an auto race track that’s been there for so long. Could you imagine if a sign went up indicating that drivers were no longer allowed to rev their engines?

Sometimes, when I see signs like this posted by municipalities, it makes me scratch my head.

For a Sunday, your thoughts?

• if you were to visit a dog park and saw a sign like that, how would you obey it?
• how do you stop a dog from barking? (I saw the one dog in the video wearing a muzzle)
• the signs that were posted in Toronto were quickly taken down. How long do you figure the ones in Montreal will last?
• can you picture any scenario where a person in charge of posting signs would think that this was a good and enforcable idea?
• if this went to court, who would be guilty – the dog or the owner? It’s not as silly a question as you might think – the signs on the 401 don’t say “Don’t let your spouse drive over 100 km/h”
• can you think of a silly sign that you have seen in your world that would rival this?

I hope that you’re smiling as much as I was when I saw the report and I hope that you have an opinion that you can share in the comments below.

This is a regular Sunday post around here. You can check them all out here.

Happy Mothers’ Day.