I think that the new dog bylaw is a good and necessary thing.
I cringe when I see dogs loose in pickups and was annoyed when I had to remove my dog from the vicinity of an overly excited, barely controlled pitbull.
The real reason I write is that it is equally annoying to chase cats out of my garden.
I eventually replaced my kid’s sandpit with patio stones because of the lovely gifts that the neighbourhood cats had left.
They kill and disrupt the nesting birds.
I grew up with a cat in the house for many years. We were guilty of imposing our pet’s waste and hunting habits on everyone else. I just didn’t think of it until I was an adult.
In Red Deer, there is a cat bylaw requiring the animals to be leashed. There just seems to be little interest in obeying or enforcing it.
I know that a cat walking across the lawns on the street is virtually ignored.
If my dog runs around the street, somebody will call bylaw enforcement.
If I want to deal with a repeat offender, I have to trap it and bring it into the kennel.
Cats are primarily nocturnal and most owners turn them out at night where nobody sees them at work.
I really do love cats. I just find it really tough to take that I have my dog trained to use the dog run for his toilet but have to clean up after other pets.
Martin Bolhuis
Red Deer