Anthropomorphism
The Lawrence Journal-World, which coincidentally is almost as dumb a name for a newspaper as Post Intelligencer, writes:
Justice for killer pit bull delayed by lax enforcement
In Lawrence, owners of dogs found to be “dangerous” must do what a judge orders them to do, such as building a secure pen and registering the dog with the city. If owners don’t comply after 15 days, the law says, the dog will be impounded or put to sleep.
But that’s not exactly what happened in the case of a pit bull that attacked and killed a Chihuahua named Peanut this spring. For more than three months, the pit bull’s owner was allowed to keep the dog without meeting the conditions ordered by Municipal Court Judge Randy McGrath.
The case finally came to a close Thursday, when the pit bull’s owner admitted he hadn’t met all the conditions, city officials said. He was fined $250, and the dog was impounded and probably will be put to sleep this week.
But Tom Fellers, Peanut’s owner, said the fact the pit bull was allowed to remain in the community for so long shows that the city’s system doesn’t have enough teeth.
“It’s a weak law, and it was very weakly enforced by the court once the dog was determined to be dangerous,” Fellers said. “That’s not acceptable.”
While I generally support such a law because it requires that the owner of the pet be held responsible, I don’t like the fact that the reporter used the word justice. Animals don’t comprehend justice and it isn’t applicable to them. The dog probably doesn’t remember the incident and killing the dog isn’t going to dissuade other dogs from doing the same. Justice, like irony, is lost on dogs.
Of course, I like to wait until politically incorrect dog falls asleep on the couch, then I jump on the couch to wake him up. I do this because when I fall asleep, he hops on the couch and wakes me up. While I get a bit of satisfaction out of it, my dog doesn’t get it.
