This, That, and the Other

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of you earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember?

Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 13th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

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This was originally posted on December 13, 2012 in my now defunct blog. Also note that when this post was written, we hadn’t yet moved to our current house, which is just three blocks from Golden Gate Park.

Dog Duties

Dog ownership has its rewards, like the unconditional love and eager companionship you get from your pooch. It also has its challenges, such as walking the beast three or four times a day in all kinds of weather and gathering up its poops in little, eco-friendly, compostable bags.

Before we moved to San Francisco, our neighborhood back east offered plenty of grassy areas where our dog could do her thing during her daily walks. And, of course, in deference to our neighbors, we would always pick up afer her using those aforementioned poop bags.

But dog ownerhship when living in the heart of a large urban center has even more challenges, especially when it comes to finding suitable places for your dog to do its bidness in the concrete and asphalt jungle where you live. While there are trees planted in small square plots along many of the sidewalks — thanks to a local organization, Friends of the Urban Forest — there are no expansive lawns anywhere.

Large, grassy areas are not just around the corner, either. A nice, dog-friendly (read: off-leash permitted) park with great views of San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz is about five blocks to the northeast of where we live. Another, slightly larger park with spectacular views of downtown San Francisco is nine blocks southeast.
The closest grassy area that doesn’t require climbing steep hills to get to is a not-so-dog-friendly athletic field four blocks away. The athletic field has a sign that specifically prohibits dogs from the field.

I guess I can understand that. If I had a kid playing soccer on that field, I wouldn’t want him or her to trip and land face-first in a pile of dog poop.

Still, we do take our dog to that field and allow her to poop when she has to, but we have our disposable poop bags with us at all times and diligently clean up after her. Hey, it’s a messy job, but someone has to do it.

There’s also the option of getting into the car and taking the five minute drive to Golden Gate Park. Or we could head to Land’s End, Crissy Field, or the Presidio (just west, east, and south of the Golden Gate Bridge, respectively). We could drive for ten minutes to Ocean Beach or to other green and dog-friendly venues in and around the city.

But that means, well, getting in the car. We often do take our dog in the car for her late afternoon outing. But at most other times, we walk her to either the small park to the north or the athletic field to the south of our place.

What has surprised me, though, is that in San Francisco, a bastion of individual freedom and personal independence, I’ve run across so many signs of intolerance when it comes to our canine friends.

And by “signs of intolerance,” I’m speaking quite literally about physical signs, both the informal, hand-crafted kind and official, professional ones.
But my favorite hand-made sign is this one warning dog owners that “dog duties” are not allowed. Hmm. I wonder what specific duties the sign-maker was thinking about?