Wednesday, July 25, 2007

And the Batter Has Two Strikes and No Balls On Him

Bit of an update from the previous couple posts, made possible, mostly, by a phone call that I received this morning from the city solictor. My supposedly humourous observation that DW was wearing a shirt, which must have meant something official was going on, turned out to be dead on: court date. DW pled guilty to owning a dangerous dog and accepted all the prosecution's demands in exchange for the dog being returned to him. (Had he pled not guilty and still been found guilty, he might not have gotten DWD back. So, in a way, good for the schmuck taking the course that would ensure that DWD wouldn't be put down. However, it means he can never appeal the decision.) And what are these conditions?

Construction of an enclosure in the back yard. Sorry, DW, city bylaws won't allow the chicken coop you've erected in the front yard. Animal Control is expected to swing by to inform him of the bad news and review the conditions.
DWD must be muzzled and leashed whenever it is outside and not in the enclosure. Well, DW's already blown this one as he's been outside several times with DWD sans muzzle or leash, including going to and from the Double Widemobile. Actually, it's standard procedure.
DWD cannot be allowed to leave the house on its own. Our ever wily hero erected a suitcase barricade in the open door on Saturday, which DWD easily jumped within an hour. Thus far, no improvements to the original idea have been forthcoming. Animal Control is expected to veto this as well.

Now, I'm not a vindictive person—well, okay, a little; that DW has had possibly a dozen warnings and we've been forced to this point makes me want the dumb fuck to suffer a bit for being too cool and/or a turd by consistently ignoring them—so I'll offer a couple suggestions, which might solve the third problem. I imagine that the door is kept open because Maison Double Wide traps heat like flypaper traps … some kind of bug. So, two ideas:

(1) Buy a screen door. Simple and more or less does what DW and the Double Wide Action Team have been pursuing already with the open door—improve air flow.
(2) Buy an air conditioner, either the window unit kind or the portable ones. Keep your doors closed and cool off the modern way. Both options cost money, but then he's paid several hundred dollars in fines already.

I can't believe for a second that neither suggestion has been offered up after all these years, so I can only assume that there are religious or political implications for why he's rejected both.

What does this mean going forward? Well, the city solicitor told me that if DW fails to comply, he'll be in violation of a court order, which probably carries stiffer punishment, including fines, jail time, and/or losing DWD. Surely he'll be smart enough not to fuck up yet again, won't he?

Alright, settle down with your laughter and hooting. Another possibility is intriguing. Castle Double Wide has a basement suite, and I assume only it has access to the backyard (hence DW spending his life on parade in the front). So, if DW's lease doesn't include the backyard, he might well be fucked (sorry to go all legalese on you). His options would be to (1) ignore the lease and build the enclosure in the backyard anyway; (2) get permission from the landlord/basement tenant to build the enclosure in the backyard; (3) give the dog up; or (4) move away. I'll let you in on a dirty little secret: I'd prefer #4, even tho it would mean the end of this blog. A small price to pay for potentially improving the neighbourhood. But that's all hypotheticals and suchlike. We only deal with reality here—with purple dragons swooping down on busses driven by angry talking penguins.

1 Comments:

At 12:53 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

This is by far the funniest blog I have EVER read. I soooooo want to move onto your street! We'll quit our jobs, relocate, find new schools whatever it takes. Well, it was nice to dream for a moment....I'll just continue to read your entries, live vicariouly through you and pee my pants.

 

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