Dogism

Along with all the other evangelic crusades of the new century - anti-alcohol, anti-drugs, anti-obesity, anti-hooliganism, anti-prostitution (mostly mirroring those of early last century) comes the anti-dog campaign.

It is understandable that people with children are cautious about dogs but having both children and dogs gives perhaps a more balanced perspective.

The NZ Herald editorial today has made the re-ignited issue about Rodney Hide and his attempts to bring some deeper thinking to the debate over freedom and restriction. It quotes Hide;

"I am not sure that people with an irrational fear, however real, of dogs have a right to require the physical restraint of all dogs in public places," he said when announcing the review last October.

Setting aside the question of how a fear can be irrational and real at the same time, it is worth pointing out the size of the margin by which Hide misses the point.

There is no "question" about a fear being both real and irrational. Plenty of people harbour fears that are irrational. Extreme cases are called phobia. But that sentence captures the fault-finding mood of the writer.

All dogs should be leashed all of the time. That seems to be the position taken.

All dogs pose a problem or a potential problem. Perhaps a potential problem is a problem of itself. Ergo all dogs are a problem.

In reality, some dog owners and some dogs are the problem. The attitude taken by the Herald would be bizarre and repulsive if it was applied to people. Some people are criminals, or potential criminals but it doesn't follow that everybody's freedom should be restricted - although that is the path we are going down with the likes of surveillance cameras. Pursuing this line of thought the Herald would have us all in monitoring anklets.

A new term should be coined. Dogism. Like feminism and racism it describes an attitude that treats all individuals as one based on some attribute beyond the control of the bearer.

Dogism is growing thanks, in part, to the media. It is itself irrational. It forgets that domesticated dogs have shared our society forever. That they fulfil many functions no other animal or person can; leading the blind; assisting the disabled; tracking offenders; protecting property; herding farmstock; hunting or retrieving; supporting racing and showing industries; visiting terminally ill people or dysfunctional children; saving lives. But above all they are companions and for some, provide a purpose for living.

So I am not about to become an apologist for dogs. And it makes a change to see a politician bring some broader thinking to the issue of dangerous dogs beyond the reactionary and emotional dogist response.