My daughter and her good friend were chasing bubbles at the edge of our old neighborhood park one sunny day last week. As a man with a large, leashed dog came toward us, a particularly fierce gust carried a flurry of suds out over the wide sidewalk, and both kids ran out to pop them under the poplars that line the street.

The dog owner stopped nervously. His path wasn’t really blocked by these two toddlers, but you he was unwilling to bring his dog too close. He also betrayed by a sour expression that he was annoyed by the interruption. I quickly called Boobaby back to me and my companion did the same for her son, but dog-man scowled at us and slouched off, mumbling ill will into his mobile phone.

In that way, I, who am truly a dog person, was forced to take part in an urban turf war playing out in San Francisco (and perhaps your town, too): canines versus kids.

Fittingly, we recently moved from one neighborhood where the dogs won this battle to another where the kids did. Our old park was recently renovated, and from the published plans you’d have thought that a large, fenced dog run was in the works, leaving a small but reasonable chunk of lawn for kids to run around without worrying about aggressive dogs (not to mention their, ahem, “land mines”). When the rebuild was complete, however, the “fence” turned out to be a single decorative chain stretched between pylons — an aesthetically pleasing boundary marker but certainly no barrier to human or animal. The dogs won there, and as I’ve mentioned, their owners don’t let us parents forget it.

At the new playground, however, rampant community activism (I’ve met her — she really is rampant) kept the entire park an on-leash site. Moreover, if a dog escapes its handler even briefly, an unidentified resident of the hillside above (who, I suspect, is the same rampant community activist) blasts an air horn. Repeatedly. Not surprisingly, the kids more than the dogs are bothered by this frightening clamor.

I honestly believe we can do better than this. Boobaby loves dogs and I like her to know about them, so we often approach them when we’re out. When we come up to a dog, I take responsibility for making sure that I’ve checked with the owner about the dog’s temperament, and if it’s alright to touch that dog, that my daughter is touching it correctly and gently. In return, I expect dog owners to keep their animals under control in common areas like sidewalks and away from kids and adults who don’t want contact.

Kids and dogs could coexist easily if everyone involved were to act temperately. Sadly, parents of both kids and dogs are prone to becoming unduly exercised when it comes to their little ones’ happiness, and common sense is the first casualty of that passion.

by Doodaddy

Photo graciously provided by Flatcoat, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved