Education is KEY to responsible ownership

When I first moved to Indianapolis, my husband and I were shocked and appalled by some of the things we saw in relation to pets.

I cannot count how many times we stopped the car to grab someone’s dog that was wandering the streets. Frequently we would find the owner and be met with nonchalance. Whoops, he got out. Oh, I forgot to put her collar on.

While accidents DO happen (my dog sneaked out once while being dog-sat), the casual ownership I witness here in Indiana is very strange to me.

In San Diego, with the exception of off-leash parks and maybe beach towns, you never see a dog wandering around. Leashes are de rigeur. Practically everyone has a privacy fence, or at least chain link. Before moving here, I had never seen a tie-out except in the pet store.

I can only attribute this strange behavior in Indiana to a lingering farm mentality. Farm animals are chattel, and on many farms, the dogs live outside and work the farm.

I was first exposed to this concept when my mom told me about her life growing up on a farm. They had a dog, and her job was to keep the kids in a particular part of the yard. She lived full time in the yard. When she whelped, they gave away the male dogs and drowned the females in a sack the river. They had other dogs over time, all of which worked on the farm.

My husband’s family owns a ranch. They have two doxies which are their pets and live in the house. The two mutts live in dog houses on the porch. They are the working dogs. They don’t ever come inside. I don’t know if they even recognize the dichotomy.

This is not to say that working dogs aren’t well cared for. On the contrary, I think working dogs are better socialized than many “pets”. My point is that I think this mentality has prevailed, even thought the majority of people no longer live and work on a farm. Dogs are possessions, not beloved members of the family.

When Indy Pit Crew goes into various neighborhoods for our Community Pet Days, I get an opportunity to talk to people about their pets and I overwhelmingly get a sense that they just don’t know any better. They do care about their animals – hell, why else would they continue to feed them? They just don’t know how to care for them.

For example – the woman who brought her 4 dogs, none of which had been vaccinated, altered, had functional collars or any identification. She brought them over one at a time from her home… on a length of chain. Once we talked to her, she got them all vaccinated and micro-chipped, signed up to receive spay/neuter certificates and gratefully accepted collars, a leash, and discount rabies coupons.

I think that educating owners is key to resolving some of the issues that are plaguing the city. Many people don’t know it’s illegal to keep an unsupervised, unaltered dog on a tether. Many people don’t know what “socialization” means. We have a huge opportunity to educate and really make a difference for the animals in our community.

I am excited about Indy Pit Crew’s efforts this year. We’re stepping it up in a big way. We’re going to host our first ever PuppyPalooza, to get owners educated early in the proper way to care for their animal. We’re going to offer responsible owner education sessions as part of our Community Pet Days where we’ll cover the applicable laws and recommended care. A bunch of area trainers have offered to come demonstrate training techniques at our first ever “Train the Owner” day.

Hopefully, our education efforts will reduce and eventually eliminate the attitudes and associated behaviors that create dog problems in our community.