Never having served in the military, I did not have an opinion regarding the Clinton-era Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Traveling with a Border Collie puppy who yips and barks in a mournful manner when left alone for even a few minutes in a hotel room, however, I now realize the value of the idea.
After a haircut (for me) in a dog-friendly barber shop, Ollie and I had dinner this evening at Norm’s Eatery and Ale House (yelp). There were a lot of dogs underneath the tables in the restaurant. How can that be legal in dogophobic America? The restaurant doesn’t ask whether or not an incoming dog is a service animal. The patrons don’t tell the restaurant whether or not an incoming dog is a service animal. Ergo, as far as the restaurant knows, all of the dogs in the restaurant are service animals.
[I do wonder why Americans are so paranoid about dogs to the point that it would be illegal in nearly all states for a restaurant to say “we allow dogs”, giving the dogophobes fair warning. No dog has ever given a human AIDS, swine flu, a cold, malaria, herpes, or any of the other contagious diseases that occupy folks’ imaginations.]
Americans are paranoid about dogs because dog owners do not always have good control over their dogs. Some small but non-negligible percentage of dogs bite, and the owners cannot be trusted to be objective about the probability of that happening and therefore cannot be trusted to take appropriate precautions. (Before you go looking for statistics about dog bites, consider the dog that tore my wife’s skirt – still an unpleasant experience, but not reported anywhere, and also consider the number of bites that didn’t happen because the paranoid went to the other side of the street.)
If you do want some statistics to support the “non-neglible” claim: http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/biteprevention.html
A dogfight in a restaurant might be a really ugly thing.
Seriously, restaurants in America can’t legally allow dogs in? I didn’t realise Islamification had gotten that far!
(There’s a pub near us that has a special doggy menu, so you can feed you dog something nice while you eat, or just drink!)
Unvaccinated dogs can give people rabies. This blog outlines multiple ways pets can transmit infectious diseases, often to people.
http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/
Plenty of European restaurants allow dogs. Personally, my line is drawn when dogs sit at the table and eat off the same plates as humans. I agree with Lawrence that Americans in general (present company excepted) are not very good dog owners and can’t handle an off leash dog.
Lawrence, Anonymous: If you’re afraid of dogs, you wouldn’t have to go into the handful of restaurants with a “we welcome dogs” sign out front. It is certainly true that many dog owners view their aggressive animals with a lack of objectivity. At the dog park in Seattle, for example, a cotton-skirted woman with long gray hair wearing an Obama T-shirt brought her pit bull mix to the dog park and then seemed surprised when it began attacking other dogs. A restaurant is actually in a better position to eject drug dealers’ and Obama-lovers’ pit bulls than a public street or park.
If dogs are too dangerous to be with humans, banning them only in restaurants seems like a very weak measure. Shouldn’t we also ban them from public streets, parks, etc.? Even a leashed dog on a sidewalk comes close enough to unsuspecting pedestrians that he could bite them and transmit rabies (in http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/human_rabies.html the CDC says that there are 2-3 cases of rabies nationwide in the U.S. each year; it looks as though most of the cases are from bats and foreign travel; no cases in the 15 years described were from a domestic dog bite).
Especially now that the government’s share of health care will be well over 50 percent, you can argue that most dog bite treatment will be paid for by taxpayers and therefore dogs should be entirely banned from the United States (as Stephen points out, this would also make our country friendlier to Muslim guests and immigrants).
David: regarding off-leash dogs… the restaurant in question has a written policy requiring dogs to be kept on-leash and off the furniture. They also insist that dogs be well socialized and say “if you can’t take your dog to the dog park, you can’t bring him here” (would not have stopped the Obama-supporting pit bull owner, obviously, since she did think that her fighting dog would be welcomed by the Goldens and Labs of the dog park).
Hey, I’ve been following your blog for a while. I work in Fremont and take my poodle over there for lunch time to time. If I’d known, I would’ve stopped by and said hi!
Some people are allergic to dogs, some are very allergic.
I think the difference here is that, assuming all the dogs truly are service dogs, but your dog gets kicked out for no other reason than that it is a Border Collie (there’s no need to “tell” since we can very obviously see what kind of dog it is, so it’s still not a good metaphor).
I weird comparing servicemen to dogs… If we find out a soldier is gay, and kick them out of the army (restaurant), it seems to be that this is for no good reason. They’re qualified enough to become a serviceman, their orientation should not matter, just like it should not matter if your (presumably) well-trained “service dog” is a Border Collie (or Pit Bull, albeit in our hypothetical situation, a well-trained one).
In regards to your parenthetical remarks, dogs may not be allowed in plenty of restaurants not because of fearful humans, but because of generic health code violations. Given that at many places humans with far less hair generally aren’t allowed facial hair and many cooks wear hair nets or hats, the absurdly higher risk of hair contamination (or stuff in/on/under hair? I’m not familiar with dog hygiene) is a risk that doesn’t seem worth exposing? I could be very wrong, but it probably just boils down to some health codes, rather than any inherent danger from the dog itself.
Dogs are actually banned in restaurants? I had thought you were exaggerating, and that most restaurants simply would prefer not to have to cope with explaining to dog owners the fine details of peaceful coexistence with those who aren’t fans, but you imply that it’s more than that.
The rabies thing seems silly.
As with David W., Germans can take their dogs pretty much everywhere: groceries, restaurants, etc. But then Germans train their dogs.
I’m slightly allergic, but I really don’t like the smell of dogs. I suppose it would be similar to avoiding restaurants that allow smoking of cigars. Maybe they could have a dog room.
My father was recently bitten quite gruesomely while out for a run (he can no longer run), but most victims are small children. It’s quite disturbing to have been at the clinic and seeing them come in with their faces torn off by dogs. I am not in favor of dog ownership in general. The benefits seem so slight to me. I can’t understand why people do it.
Paul, Mattmc: If you’re allergic, Seattle has thousands of non-dog-friendly restaurants happy to serve you, including one right next door to Norm’s. I’m not sure why a city having a handful of dog-friendly restaurants should inconvenience the allergic/dog-phobic members of the public. If I am offended by the way that God created women, for example, I can refrain from walking into a gentlemen’s club. Allowing some restaurants and bars to have naked girls on stage has not resulted in the death of Chuck E’ Cheese and other family-friendly establishments.
Josh: As far as health hazards from dog hair are concerned, most of the customers in a dog-friendly restaurant will either be dog owners or people who visit dog-owning households. So they will have developed an immunity to dog-hair-borne diseases. People whose immune systems are too fragile can refrain from entering past the “warning: you may encounter dogs here” sign. There were some dogless young women at the booth next to my table and they wanted to pet Ollie. Considering their slender physiques and the amount of beer that they were putting away, I would have to guess that they were in excellent health.
I don’t know if there is any evidence that exposure to dogs in restaurants is injurious to health. The Germans and Swiss seem very healthy. On the other hand, the French have taken to protesting in the streets lately that they aren’t smart and clever enough to work from age 30 to 60 and be dependents of the state for years 0-30 and 60-90. So perhaps dogs in restaurant cause mental illness.
Mattmc: What are the benefits of dog ownership? Looking just at local news, I find “Hiker killed by mountain goat in Olympic Nat’l. Park”. I’m willing to bet that guy would still be alive if he’d been with his goat-protection Malamute service dog (pet dogs are not allowed on trails in National Parks). [The article recounts an awesome response by a Coast Guard helicopter crew, delivering medical help within about 30 minutes after the goat attack.] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2587031/ indicates that dog owners who walk their dogs are less likely to be obese. My women friends who’ve owned big dogs such as Labs, Goldens, and Samoyeds report that they think the dogs have saved them from being attacked. Even though the dogs were not naturally aggressive, the presence of the animal was enough to get the would-be rapist to rethink his plan.
For me personally here in Seattle, the dog has started conversations with about 100 people, so he has had a lot of social value. That’s tough to put a dollar figure on. As Americans we believe that we’re better off than Latin Americans, for example, because our houses have more square feet per person and we have a 50″ flat-screen TV. But the Latin American will be able to walk to a public plaza (built in Spanish colonial times) every evening and meet his friends; his U.S. counterpart will have completed a 45-minute commute through traffic in his SUV and will settle in, alone in the deep suburbs, to watch television.
“I do wonder why Americans are so paranoid about dogs”
I was bitten by a dog while simply taking a stroll on the sidewalk in a nice Boston suburb. The dog has bitten through my raincoat and pants, leaving clear marks on my upper thigh. The dog was on maybe 10′ leash. It wouldn’t let go off my leg for almost a minute, until the male owner has finally decided to pull it off – and then just walked off briskly without saying a word. I was too stunned by this totally unexpected attack to do anything at first, and then too much in pain to chase after him. I called police, and suggested they take their dog who can smell my clothes and trace the offender. The police officer said that they do something like this only in cases like rape. Guess I should’ve positioned myself differently for that…
I asked the police officer what should I do in cases like this – the police essentially will take no action, and my hand-combat skills are not polished enough to fight with large dogs with my bare hands. Yet we’re not allow to carry anything that could even remotely be used or construed as a weapon in this wonderful state, and even if I get the license for pepper spray, I couldn’t use it on the dog first. The police officer told me that when I see anyone walking with a dog, I should cross the street to the other side.
My 6 yr old daughter was playing in a park (not a dog park, mind you). An unleashed dog ran up to her from about 50′ and bit her in the hand. The owner pulled the dog into the car and sped off. We did manage to write down the license plate number, but the lawyer told us it’s not worth it pursuing the matter given the extremely minor nature of the injury. Minor for the lawyers – but not for the injured child.
I wasn’t concerned much about mountain goats, but if anything, these two incidents made me think about getting a dog as a sort of defence barrier against the other dogs and those two-legged animals at the other end of the leash. If it makes any difference, the first incident happened in a very nice, very “liberal” Boston suburb with some of the highest tax rates and a virtually non-existant crime, and the other in a public park in the Catskill mountains.
Benefits of dog ownership: companionship, protection, learning to care for another creature, interaction with another creature that is a lot more intelligent than you probably realise. Also, if you have a dog you learn how to handle them and will be less likely to be attacked by a strange dog.
The benefits are a lot greater than most lesiure activities, I’d say.
Stephen: I didn’t mention companionship, presumably the main benefit that dogs have delivered to humans since the agricultural revolution (the Egyptians were great dog lovers, for example; before that I guess the main benefit might have been assistance in hunting), because Matt had indicated that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want a dog. If he couldn’t love a face like the one in http://philip.greenspun.com/images/20100725-border-collie-puppies/ollie-and-greta-11 , I thought he would respond only to benefits other than direct interaction with the dog (which is obviously the biggest advantage to me and most other dog owners).
Joseph: I’m sorry to hear of these unprovoked dog attacks. http://www.plasticsurgery4u.com/procedure_folder/dog_bite.html has some statistics on the problem, indicating that about half of dog bites are provoked, usually by children. There is definitely some predation in every puppy. The cuffs of my blue jeans are still ripped from Roxanne the Samoyed’s puppyhood six years ago (she belongs to a friend, but I took care of her from time to time). Ollie the Collie has drawn blood out of me about four times with his needle-sharp puppy teeth. He has also ruined some clothing and shoes in lightning-fast demolition parties. I have been threatening to strangle him on a daily basis. If you look at the recent videos in http://www.youtube.com/user/pgreenspun and see how dogs interact with each other, you can see why a human with his fragile skin might get wounded in their world.
Unprovoked dog attacks are scary, and inexcusable on the owner’s part- dogs really do need to be under the physical/verbal control of their owner. Sorry Joseph had such rotten experiences. A well-trained dog is a joy- I just returned from the dentist, where a superbly trained boxer visits one with permission only (it’s fun to be petting Rudy rather than think about the dentist)- and long ago, my Samoyed certainly protected me when a real creep tried to get into my car at a stoplight- he had no idea she was in the back seat, and he left quickly!! But folks who do not enjoy dogs need to be respected- it seems to happen in Europe, perhaps better training is the answer.
While I agree 110% with this outlined DADT policy, I do implore you in the future to tell more!
Ollie is a feisty fur ball and I want to hear more about in this blog!
And while I know it will be anecdotal to hear about two individuals, I am interested in hearing the Samoyed/BC differences, especially the unexpected – like the trainability you have mentioned so far.
The difference between dogs in restaurants and everywhere else is not just cleanliness, but food. I see enough fights in the dog park over toys – food would be far worse. The kids I know that got bit were because they got between a dog and food. If people in America trained their dogs properly and took responsibility, it’d be a different story. Until then, restaurants need to protect themselves from liability.
Judge Napolitano talks about why Obama is appealing DADT:
Sure, food is a primal trigger for dogs; they are animals. I learned at a very young age never to touch or approach an animal that is eating. Every child should be taught this. But the answer is not to ban dogs from restaurants, or to stick the restaurant with a liability if it admits dogs. Everyone agrees that well-trained dogs are not a problem, therefore liability must sit with the dog owner. Owning a dog is a responsibility, just like owning a car or a gun. If you are negligent then you must pay compensation.
I don’t have a problem with dogs. Have one myself.
I believe that people out to be responsible for their dogs – including treating dog bites as assaults. If a dog injures me, the owner is as liable as if he injured me himself.
What would happen if we did this?
1. No more buying vicious dogs for ego-gratification. You would not buy an aggressive dog unless you had a serious need for it. Too risky.
2. No more owning dogs without a serious investment in training.
3. No more nonsense about it being “the kids fault”. If your dog bites a child, or you hit a child, its your fault. Period.
Whenever I propose this to other dog owners they fall all over themselves making up scenarios where, “it’s not the dog’s fault”. I keep agreeing with them, saying, “You’re right. Its your fault.” This just makes them angry.
Go figure.
Phil, just saw a trailer for a new movie that well put the most compelling reasons to be owned by a dog:
http://speakery.com/mydogtulipfilm/