re: #646 Cato the Elder

There is livestock and there is livestock.

In Maryland, if you take in a stray cow and the owner shows up after six months, you have to give Bessie back. After getting paid for her room and board.

If you take in a stray dog, you must make a good-faith effort to find the owner. For five days. After that, the “owner” can show up and you can still refuse to relinquish the animal.

Haku came to me as a stray puppy, on New Year’s Eve, 2003. Having just been hit by a car and taken in by friends who witnessed it. I was the one, when I went to their party and saw the condition he was in, who took him to the 24-hour animal emergency room. After engaging in an argument with my friends during which he started coughing blood. I was making great money at the time, and he looked at me with eyes that said “please help”. The vet bill was in the four figures.

I put up posters all around the neighborhood, but anyone claiming him would have owed me cash, not a check, and I was damn sure going to check them out to make sure he would never get loose again.

Three years later, in 2006, when I became ill, my doctor suggested I could use a service dog. I said “I have a dog.” He said, “If you can train him, I’ll certify him.” Now he pays me back every day ten times what I paid to save him.

And for the Rodans and Speranzas out there who are reading this and constantly saying I have no visible disability and Haku is a fake service dog, let me just ask: have you ever heard of seizure dogs? It’s something like that. As if it were any of your business.

Haku is not my property.

Ah, yes, I believe service dogs fall under a different category in legaleze. As do police dogs and military dogs.

Did you know that the shelters tend to get the dogs that are not “pet quality”. Meaning that the family that adopted them couldn’t handle them. These dogs tend to also have the qualities (strong prey drive, too damn smart for the average family etc …) that make for excellent service and police dogs. Unfortunately, there is no system in place to search-out and place these dogs with the proper entity. Not mention the cost of such training. (Last I heard it was $5K for a search-and-rescue dog).

Once I get some of albusteve’s kool-aide, I’ll make a lot of changes, but until then… .