Garth George: Keep dogs out of Rotorua CBD

Rotorua District Council members have made the right decision in declining a proposal to allow dogs in the central city.

And even if they receive 30,000 submissions on the question before the end of June, they should not be swayed.

As a dog owner I would no more take my dog to the busy central business district than I would take him to church, or a restaurant, or the movies. There are too many people and too many smells, so my little cavalier King Charles spaniel, a nose dog, would just about go barmy.

He is friendly to humans and sociable with other dogs and I would have no fear of him crapping in the street, since he attends to that matter at about the same time each day.

But I am dead certain he would find more than a few scents to cock his leg at - and who wants to see or smell dog pee when they are about their lawful occasions downtown? As for allowing dogs on a leash in Kuirau Park, the lakefront or the Government gardens, I have no objections provided that dogs are kept on a leash and their owners clean up after them. There is little chance of that, however, judging by the amount of dog s*** I encounter every time I take my little bloke for a walk around our suburb.

I came late to dog ownership and it's only in the past seven years or so that I've had much to do with dogs. But all my life there's been a cat round the house and there still is, 13 years old and still going strong.

For years I avoided getting a dog as a pet. They're not independent like cats. They require a personal commitment that goes beyond just the physical - an emotional response that I wasn't sure I was prepared to give. And they have to be exercised and played with and bathed and brushed and generally made a fuss of.

But the time came when I ran out of excuses and, after much searching of the internet and discussions with breeders, a tiny red and white bundle of fur became part of our household.

I won't bore you with the details of his upbringing. Suffice it to say he is now a middle-aged adult and it is impossible to imagine our house without his cheerful, active presence.

And that, I think, applies also to the cat - our lovely old chocolate and cream birman. Mind you, it took a while for the energetic canine interloper to be accepted, and many a whack upside the ear had to be administered by the cat before the newcomer found his proper place.

But they have long lived together companionably, peacefully going about their mysterious feline and canine lives.

I have always refused to indulge in anthropomorphism, which is a 50c word for treating animals as if they were human. They are not. They rely wholly on instinct and training, and every time they are taken from their home environment there is no guarantee they will behave as we would like, particularly somewhere such as downtown.

Dogs, after all, will be dogs.

garth.george@hotmail.com