Editor:
Re: Dogs on the Promenade:
We no longer have any four-footed members of the family, but both our hounds lived 17 years each, one after the other.
In the days before the prom’ was built we enjoyed the beach for a run along the waters’ edge in winter at low tide.
Once the prom’ was in place, we found other places to go.
The whole idea was for the dog to enjoy the outing.
I can think of no more harrowing an experience for a dog than to have to negotiate the forest of human legs churning toward it on the very narrow, uneven brick path with a roaring, horn-blowing train on one side and an equally crowded strip of grass on the other.
What are you people thinking?
Certainly not of the poor animal involved.
Same goes for dragging the poor beast down Marine Drive itself.
Then we have the matter of poorly designed leashes.
You know the ones I mean.
Retractable so that the dog is 20 feet in front of its owner, completely uncontrolled.
I still bear the scars on my leg from an incident 30 years ago when a small pooch was so delighted to see me that it wound itself around my ankles.
It would have been untangled without harm if the silly woman hadn’t pressed the button causing the leash to zoom back burning a length of skin off me in the process.
Same thing happened to my husband some years later, walking near the pier, only he was lucky enough to be wearing long pants so no skin removal only a bad fall on the bricks as he was “lassoed”.
It wasn’t the dog’s fault in either case.
It was the fault of the thoughtless, selfish human in charge of it.
Many communities in other parts of the country have leash laws that ban retractable leashes and demand a leash must be no longer than five feet.
Fewer “accidents” that way.
There are wonderful places to walk a dog safely and happily, in this area.
The prom’ is not one of them, especially for the sake of the animal.
Pat Patton, White Rock