On my way into work this morning I saw a dog poking around near the town green.
It was odd.
It shouldn’t have been odd because it was just a dog sniffing around – but as I thought more about it I realized that dogs don’t do that anymore.
Dogs are on leashes, behind intangible fences, in houses or cars… but not sniffing around… on their own… carefree and enjoying a fine summer morning.
When I was a kid you would see dogs. You would see dogs and kids, wandering all over the place. You thought nothing of it.
If your trash got knocked over by the neighbor’s dog you shook your fist, and put the lid on tighter next time, you didn’t call the police or a lawyer.
It was nothing to see a pack of 10 year olds come out of the woods looking like they had been in there for a week.
If you saw your neighbors kid climbing a utility pole you opened the window and yelled at them to get down before they killed themselves. Your neighbor was ok with that because they just chased your dog our of their garage.
They say the world is a different place now, that you can’t let your kids or dogs roam around without a leash and a GPS chip. But what made the world different?
Did the world really become such a bad place? Or did we just think it did?
I suppose I didn’t realize how much I miss seeing dogs wander around.
6 comments:
I though this might be leading up to "Omigod, that *was* the Free Dog!"
Baaaaack in myyyyy dayyy, dogs roamed around and if ya got yer face bit off, yewwwwwww liked it!
~eb
In my childhood, our family dog was never hindered by fences or leashes. We opened the door and let her out, she let us know when she wanted back in. Those were simpler times.
I miss them too.
Naw. Dogs off of strings freak me. You know if they were allowed to gather freely they would usurp us
ah, the good ole days.. when dogs were dogs and kids ran free. When did it change?
I got bit twice as a kid by a roaming pooch. My folks just asked "what did you do to upset the dog?" and I got over it. My dog is not even allowed to pee on the grass where I live (I let her anyway, my version of walking on the wild side). I say "let the dogs roam free! But lock up the kids, they bite."
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