Dog Crap

Another moody morning outside, brindled clouds with unclear intentions.

Happy Wife texts me from the conference. The keynote talk, which she left not half way through, was delivered by an optometrist on national health care. My God, what possibly could be worse, decaf coffee? A baseball game tied 0-0 in the bottom of the ninth? Hey, want to watch paint dry, follow me!

Good grief.

The goal of an early morning keynote is to enliven the attendees, not to induce somnolence.

I texted her back: Just go shopping for cryin out loud.

Our daily rag had an article raising concern for moose in Kincaid Park. Followers of this blog know that the dogs and I are at Kincaid park nearly every day of the week. Two moose were recently shot and killed there, one because children were being threatened, the other in self defense. It’s true that moose can be particularly surly during rut, one needs to be careful. Years ago Happy Wife and her dog at the time were pinned down by a bull moose, and eventually rescued by police who shot and killed it. A tragicomic story she retells well.

Anyway, in the article, some dude claimed the problem at Kincaid park is menacing dogs off leash:

To Doug Lloyd the solution is simple.

“Get all the damn unleashed dogs out of this park,” said Lloyd, a wildlife photographer and Department of Corrections retiree.

Lloyd has been photographing moose in Kincaid since 1981.

On a sunny day last week, he and Rob Tappana, another wildlife photographer, were watching a bull with an impressive rack eat its way along the edge of the Lekisch Trail, near the stadium.

Tappana, who retired from the U.S. Air Force, also saw new mountain biking trails and unleashed dogs as central to what he agreed was a growing problem for Kincaid’s moose.

What a load of dog crap. I’ve been walking/running dogs off lead in that park almost as long as he’s been photographing moose there, and I can’t recall a single instance, not one, of an off leash dog (even many dogs) threatening the life of a moose. I’ve witnessed plenty of the reverse of course, pissed off moose charging, and in some cases, stomping dogs. People too. Who knows, one day it might happen to a photographer.