The Danger of Leaving Pets Outside Unattended

Why do people not think twice about leaving their pets tied up outside as they shop or run into Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee? Don't they realize that leaving a dog outside unattended is no different than leaving a baby in a carriage outside unattended? Whether a tiny Yorkie or a large Akita, dogs are helpless out there; they're sitting targets for a dognapper looking to heist a dog to sell for research or for use as bait for dog-fighting training. Within moments of leaving your dog outside, he can be grabbed, thrown in a car, and wind up out-of-state before you can blink your eyes and mutter, "where'd he go?" Folks sitting around outside or walking by have no way of knowing whether or not your dog belongs to the person who takes him, and unless you know the person you've asked to keep an eye on him, you can't really trust them to be as attentive as you'd like. Even the person you've asked to keep an eye on your dog can be the evil culprit. I admit, I have an overly-paranoid mother (she sends me articles about never leaving your knives right-side-up in a dishwasher because you could accidentally fall on one, stab yourself in the heart and die; and an old boyfriend just reminded me of the time he barbecued at my parents' house and burned everything, and about my mom freaking out about us not eating anything because it might be poisonous.) In this case, however, I think I'm being realistic. This is just plain common sense.

Not too long ago, a guy in our neighborhood left his 11-year-old beagle, Mollie, tied up right by the entrance of Whole Foods. He came out, and Mollie was gone. Missing Dog signs were posted all over our neighborhood and throughout our dog park. Over a week later, I noticed a beagle that looked much like Mollie, jogging through the park with some guy. Being the yenta that I am, I ran up to him and asked if the dog was Mollie. Sure enough, it was. He told me that a woman had called him and told him that she'd seen the signs. She explained that when she saw Mollie tied up outside she thought she'd been abandoned, so she untied Mollie and took her home. Of course, in this case, Mollie had no collar or tags -- unbelievable for a city dog. Nevertheless, this shows you how easy it is to scoop up a pup and take off. When the guy went to the woman's house to pick Mollie up, he told me that there was a dog bed on the floor alongside a small pile of toys. He told me that the woman appeared to be slightly wacko, and he didn't know whether or not she'd lost her own dog and saw Mollie as an opportunity, or whether she truly thought Mollie had been abandoned. At least this story has a happy ending.

A shocking and not-so-happy ending is this one: When we first adopted Opal and began bringing her to the dog park, one day I noticed Missing Dog signs everywhere with a photo of a cop and a German Shepherd. The sign, posted by a police officer, said that he'd been parked right at the corner of Sacramento and Gough, here in Pacific Heights. You couldn't pick a more seemingly-safe neighborhood; in other words, Pac. Hts. is no slum, if you catch my drift. WELL... he'd left is K9 cop dog tethered on the back of his truck in the whatever-you-call it-place-where-you-put-things. He'd only left his K9 there for a few minutes, but when he came out, his dog was gone. In his postings he mentioned how much his dog meant to him, how devasted he was, and that the department was offering a large reward for the safe return of his dog. Again, yenta that I am (and worrier, be reminded), I regularly asked our park off-leash-dog-park buster cops if the dog had ever been recovered. "Nope," was the answer. Have you ever watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua? (Yeah, yeah, say what you will. I found it cute, funny and very uplifting.) I never stopped thinking that his K9 may have wound up like Delgado. And we're talking about a POLICE DOG here. I rest my case.

Please, PLEASE pass the word on. People are oblivious. It's not about, "what are they thinking?" It's more about, "they're NOT thinking."

Ok. Off my soapbox.