PAUL LICENSE - It's a dog's life for caring pet owners
I HAVE a friend who lives in Goa. One day he bought his family a pet dog.
And one of the first things he did was to visit the post office and buy a licence. You see, India clings steadfastly to the bureaucracy we so carefully crafted on to its society.
And dog licences are still a requirement for dog owners (even though dogs roam as freely as cows and appear to be owned by nobody and everybody in equal measure).
And when it comes to officialdom, everything is done in triplicate. And the sales of carbon paper continue to boom, year on year.
So, my pal joined the queue at the post office and finally found himself at the counter.
He requested a dog licence for his new family friend, only to be met with a blank stare from the counter assistant. It wasn't the first blank stare the dog had prompted.
When he told his family he was popping out to buy a dog licence, people stared blankly. Finally, the blankness gave way to confusion: "Why?" he was asked.
"Nobody buys dog licences."
"Because you are supposed to have one," he replied.
The same exchange took place at the counter in the post office. So a tidy little booklet of tear-off licences was produced, the page was turned with carbon papers placed on the two following pages for official records.
And the licence was duly completed, torn off and presented to my friend. He still has it. He is quite proud of it. It is Licence Number One.
I suspect there are many people in this country who will do their duty if the Government gets its way with the latest suggestion from the Department of Daft Ideas.
You can't have helped picking up on the item earlier this week where it was suggested that dog owners should be forced to insure their dogs in case they are responsible for an attack.
Now I can understand the concern over vicious dogs attacking people. I can even more understand the worries of dog owners that their beloved pet may be set upon by a slavvering brute.
But I can't understand the mentality of a Government minister and his advisors who think that the way to deal with unruly and vicious dogs is to make people pay insurance.This has all come to a head because some young people have taken to possessing dogs which they train to be as vicious and violent as possible. It is all a means of disguising their own inadequacies. But there is a more sinister side, in that some of these dog owners are using the dogs as weapons to defend themselves or to use in an assault on someone.
Quite rightly the corridors of power have hummed with the grumbles and mutterings of people worried that something must be done.
But with typical Whitehall wish-washy thinking, they have decided that everyone should have insurance for their dogs. What planet are they on?
The only people who will take out insurance are genuine dog lovers, those who fear they will lose their beloved pet if they are caught without the correct paperwork.
And the spotty youths who think their dog is an extension of their own machismo will ignore the rule, in the same way they ignore the terms of their latest ASBO or the suggestion that they should have motor insurance next time they decide to go joy riding.
Instead of penalising everyone they should deal with the problem and ensure that every dog owner is fit to keep a dog. And it's simple.
Give them a baseball cap. If they don't know the peak should be at the front, they are too thick to care for a pet.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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