Cat Leash Law

Answer: LOL!  Question: Have you ever tried to walk a cat on a leash?

Mrs. Linklater wants to refer to herself in the first person today.  Sometimes that happens, she just has to deal with it.

The town I live in is a cottage cheese suburb. White and very average. Maybe a little more religiously diversified than some -- we have our own Muslim mosque, along with both Catholic AND Jewish parochial schools. A Korean protestant church, too. 

We also have the required White Hen Pantry and a sub-par 7-11, not to mention Dunkin Donuts, Subway, Domino's, Target, Kohl's, Kinko's, FedEx, Michael's, and a HUGE Shop till You Drop, Eat till You Burst, then Go to One of our Sixteen Movie Theaters Mall, along with a number of regular sized and eensey weensey malls scattered all over town.

Crate and Barrel's corporate headquarters are here.  So are All State, Underwriter's Labs, Culligan, Accenture, Jim Beam, the list goes on.

From the evidence I've provided, my town would seem to have all the trappings of civilization.

So what were the Village Trustees thinking when they enacted a cat leash law? In a nutshell, if you want to let your cat outside in my town, it has to be on a leash. Or you can be fined.

This could leave cat owners up a tree -- literally. Actually anyone who has ever tried to walk a cat has no doubt discovered the real problem immediately. They simply lie down and refuse to move.

On the other hand, a dog leash law makes sense, mainly because only the long arm of the law could pressure a dog owner to remove Fido's droppings from my lawn.  Cats, for some reason, have always had a built-in clean up mechanism -- they instinctively know how to bury their leave behinds -- usually under a bush, where you will never know it existed. [I wonder how you write DNA code for something like that?]

Over the years, before dog leash laws, I've experienced snarling AKC pedigreed canines up close and personal as they jump up, chase, knock down, attack, and bark at just about everything: Cars, cyclists, joggers, mail carriers, delivery people, me, my children, neighbors and friends. Leashes are to dogs as handcuffs are to criminals. Very appropriate.

In contrast, when was the last time you saw a cat trying to tear the hubcaps off your tires? Or come running at you, unprovoked, mewling and puking -- oh, sorry, I got sidetracked, I meant to say: Meowing and hissing like a jungle animal? When have you watched a kitty knock down your kid to get at her ice cream cone? Or, for that matter, stop to take a pee on your leg?  Leashes are to cats as forks are to ice cream.  Not useful.

When the leash law was enacted for dogs here, there was an enormous hue and cry from the local dogowners. Boy, were they were ticked off.  Now they had to actually walk their dogs instead of just letting them run free and leave dead yellow or bright green stains all over my lawn. And, to add to their humiliation, the owners were also expected to pick up their beloved doggies' poop and "dispose of it properly". They were outraged. That's why I was mildly amused to read that they were determined to get a cat leash law enacted, too.  It'll never happen, I thought.  Cooler heads will prevail. But I'll go to the meeting and make sure.

I was out of town and missed the meeting.

That was a few years ago.  And I've been so busy raising kids and working that I haven't had time to deal with this stupdity. But now the kids are on their own and I don't have to carpool to school, make lunches, chaperone dances, or be a soccer and basketball mom,

Maybe I have enough time to get that idiotic ordinance repealed.  Hm-m-m-m-m. Stay tuned.