Scout's Paw Tracks

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Scout In Kansas City Picture

Wanted to share the picture of Scout’s Win a month ago in Kansas City.  Watch soon for a picture of Blades win in Springfield.

Is your Town, City or Village Dog Friendly? It is the little things.

I was reminded this week while I was in Springfield, Illinios for a dog show of what a dog friendly versus a dog hostile community really means.  All things considered equal I will assume you know something of being a responsible dog owner.  I could write an entire thesis on that subject.  This blog posting is focused on if your hometown is dog friendly or not. 

I will start with Springfield Illinios.  My personal experiance is the town is very dog friendly and it is the little things that will make my point.  Lets start with places we all go to, the park.  Two specific parks I will highlight are the Washington Park in Springfield and second is the New Salem Lincoln Village State Park, seventeen miles outside Springfield.  New Salem where President Lincoln lived prior to moving on to bigger and better things.  This is a part of history with nearly the entire village rebuilt like it would have been during Lincoln’s days as a young man.  It is a walking park of living history.  What surprises you first is they allow dogs on leash to be walked through the park and no one is surprised they are there.  People both working there and walking the park say hello and are enquisitive about our two since many of them have never seen German Shorthair Pointers before.  You can spend hours walking the grounds taking in the peaceful environment and talking with the voulenteers who dressed in period clothing explain what life during that period was like.

While New Salem is an unique experiance, Washinton Park in Spring field is more traditional.  A fairly large park in the middle of Springfield it uncludes some unique dog amminities.  The water fountians in the park anyone of us could drink from include a fountian at dog level.  Dog or human can step on a ground plate and fresh water becomes available.  While we were there kids could carve pumpkins and display them around the park, dogs welcome, though they were not allowed to carve pumpkins. =D Also was an outdoor art exhibit for local artist to display and sell artwork.  Again dogs welcome, actually we could not walk more than a few feet before we would be stopped by patrons asking questions about the dogs or commenting on how good they looked.

This is the second year we have been to this show, and last year I needed to go get some asprin, of course it is one AM not much of a chance something would be open.  I did remember there was a Walgreens a couple of blocks away and decided I would take take a chance it was open.  Anyways it was a good opprotunity to take Scout with me for a quite walk.  I make way to Walgreens and to my surprise it was still open.  In we go the store clerk behind the counter, I expected her to say I could not bring him in I asked from across the store anyways if it was ok to bring Scout in.  The young lady behind the counter looks at me like I am crazy, and says “...of coarse it is!” Well I might be crazy I am walking my dog into a Walgreens at one AM in the morning so maybe I am crazy, but I realized the response was more one of your not from around here are you.

Of course knowing the corporate sensitivities around being sued it was still a surprise but a plesently.  My wife had a similiar experiance at Starbucks.  Mc Donalds on the other hand is sticking to it corporate guns, no dogs ever and you can not walk through the drive through even if it is four AM.  Obvious that none of them have ever had a eight AM show time and did not feel like getting in the car just to go through the drive through of the resturaunt next door to your hotel.

Over every experiance I have ever had in Springfield has been a positive one when it comes to taking dogs places int he city.

Now I live in a town known as Lake St. Louis.  Lake St Louis is a bedroom community west of St Louis.  Now we moved here from Milwaukee, Wisconson another dog friendly city.  I grew up in the St Louis area which in general is dog friendly except for some specific breeds owned by some less that responsible dog owners.  There are some very specific restrictions in some of the communities in the St Louis area.  Like some communities Lake St Louis is not overtly anti-dog in nature it is more of an subvertive attitude ; much as you can have a dog but you can not have a fence and an invisible fence is not considered to be a means of positive control by its own statues.  More specifically communities who say you can have a dog but you can not have a fence. 

Add to that a number of places you see no dog allowed signs and you have yourself a community that in general is not dog friendly.  Do people here still have dogs?  Sure they do, but the dogs have limited mobility.  The rules for dogs in this community are more designed to prevent pet ownership or at least create an environment that makes pet management a little more challenging.

Is you town dog friendly or dog hostile?  Share your comments.