BarkingDogs.net

A Cash Cow, Waiting to be Milked

The truth be told, the politicians long ago sold us out to special interest lobbyists representing elements of the dog service and supply industries, who were ready and willing to supply the lawmakers with whatever incentives were necessary to ensure that dog ownership would remain as hassle-free as possible. That is why we in the U. S. have a set of laws that serve to protect problematic dog owners at the expense of any disgruntled neighbors who might attempt to use the legal system to force them to behave responsibily.

So to explain away their refusal to assist the victims of barking abuse, government trots out the old excuse that they can't afford to provide noise abatement services. But that is just a pitifully transparent pretense for betraying the public's trust.

There is no reason why noise abatement services should cost the city any money at all. On the contrary, noise enforcement could be an enormous source of revenue for local government. The city doesn't lose money by enforcing the speed laws, nor do they come out behind by funding vigorous programs of parking enforcement. In fact, they make a fortune on those efforts.

Try this for yourself. Go out your front door and walk in any direction. Within ten minutes you will walk by at least four dogs that bark at every pedestrian that passes. (If you take a dog with you on your walk you will find that three times that number of canines bark as you pass by.) In twenty minutes on the job a noise enforcement officer could write a one-hundred-dollar ticket to each of those irresponsible dog owners. That's four hundred dollars he could bring in in twenty minutes. In a single day he could easily generate thousands of dollars for the city coffers.

Now, in addition to citing irresponsible dog owners, imagine that your town also assigned officers to write tickets for motorized skateboards, car alarms, insanely loud car engines, blaring music systems and motorcycles that can be heard from blocks away. That could add up to a considerable sum for the city. It should easily be enough to hire back some of the teachers that have been laid off, or open some of the parks, playgrounds and clinics that have been closed in these times of budget cuts.

The choice is simple. We can choose to instate vigorous programs of noise enforcement, which will put money in the public treasury and allow people to live peacefully in their homes. Or we can continue on as we are, awash in noise while we slash important public programs for lack of funds.

In any case, government really needs to come up with a better excuse for not enforcing the noise laws than to claim that they can't afford it.

Go to New Animal Control.Org for more information about animal control reform.

This page is part of Section Nine:
the Cure section of barkingdogs.net