Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Woof woof


You may have noticed that it was nice today. So, when the whistle blew at work today, my Colnago and I headed down towards the Wethersfield meadows. Things were pretty typical, though I noticed that they "regraded" the roads. They don't use gravel, or smooth the dirt, it appears that they used chewed-up asphalt to resurface. It doesn't seem like a good idea, because the stuff is super-rough and the runoff from it can't be good for the River.



Anyway, I was riding along and up ahead of me was a Maxima with a large black lab next to it. I'm pretty sure at some point on this blog that I've complained about people who go to the Meadows and drive their dogs. It pisses me off, but there's nothing new about it. The weather gets nice and people drive around with their dogs next to there cars, sometimes the dogs are even leashed. I slowed a bit as I approached. The dog had run off the road ahead to the right, but just as I got close to the car, the dog ran in front of me and I hit the dog. Not hard at all, I braked to try and not hit the dog, but I hit the dog none the less and the dog didn't even seem to care. I'm not very good at imparting rage extemporaneously, so I said yelled at the driver something like, "Watch where you put your fucking dog!" and I don't think that really makes any sense. He stared at me totally baffled, perhaps because I yelled something that made no sense, or because he hates bikes or maybe because he realized he's a terrible dog owner.

But, what the fuck? I've got nothing against dogs, but this moron seems to, because if I was driving a car or riding faster or riding a motorcycle, I would have injured or killed the dog. When did we become so lazy that we need cars to walk a dog? It's disgusting! It's bad enough when people walk dogs unleashed in public spaces and they chase after you or try to bit you, etc. However, violating the sin of sloth must count double if you drive your dog instead of walking it.

3 comments:

Billy Hoyle said...

I can't resist chiming in on this one.

On a related note, it's dog shit season in Maine! Hooray! All the dog shit that was shat and not picked up during the winter was frozen so we could have a surplus to step in and smell and a surplus to get washed into the water supply. I love this time of year. Shitty pet ownership is a major pet peeve of mine.
Happy dog shit season everyone!

Brendan said...

I quit smoking this time of year a few years ago. When you smoke, you can't smell, so when you quit you suddenly reside in this new and odoriferous world. It's especially terrible when it's rotting and thawing time of year. I don't think of it as dog shit season, I think of it as shit smelling season.

Regarding bad dog ownership, the funny thing about yesterday's short ride was that I was actually chased by another dog after I hit the first one. This time it was your garden variety idiot who walks a poorly trained dog without a leash. While it wasn't barring teeth or being vicious, it must have chased me for a half a mile before tiring out. Of course, I could tell from the beginning that the owner was angry at me because I was being chased by her dog.

Brendan said...

Good pun, by the way.