By Richard Czaplinski
It was a beautiful, cool, sunny March morning. My wife and I were hiking along a public trail in a state forest enjoying the peace and quiet, when all of a sudden came a loud growl on the trail behind us. We turned and a large dog was about 15 feet away now barking at us quite aggressively. With walking sticks in front of us, we stood our ground. After about a minute the dog turned and ran back down the trail. The dog’s owners were nowhere in sight.
We continued our walk. A few minutes later, another growl behind us and we turned and there was the same dog again, this time closer, aggressive and threatening with teeth bared. Again we stood our ground, it turned and ran back down the trail. Again no owners in sight.
As we approached our camp, my wife went on to open it up and I sat down on a side slope at the edge of the trail. I waited, thinking that the dog and owners would be along soon and I would talk to them about keeping their dog under control. Not long after I settled down and was listening for dog and humans, I was startled by another loud growl right behind me. Before I could completely stand up and turn, the same dog was running at me full speed, growling and then leaped aside and almost over me.
This time I could hear voices and assuming the voices were those of the dos’s owners, I called out that I wanted to talk to them. They came over and I explained what had happened. The owner assured me that the dog was harmless and apologized for its behavior.
Later that day as we walked out to the trailhead, we met a young couple with two very young children. We exchanged greetings, “Wonderful day to be out hiking,” and the father said, “Yes, a good time to introduce our kids to nature.” “Yes,” we commented to each other, “What a different experience it would be for that family with children if they had been in our place earlier that day!”
I am writing this letter to remind folks to keep your pets under control. Pets do have impacts such as the one my wife and I were subjected to, but they also have a multitude of other impacts as well.
Dog and cats do what is natural for dogs and cats. We can’t blame them. They roam, chase other critters, catch them and kill them. It’s their nature. A while ago, a neighbor of mine who owned a cat assured me that her cat never caught birds. While we were talking one day in her backyard near a wetland, her cat slipped quietly past us and into the wetland. A few minutes later, out it came with a beautiful yellow warbler in its mouth! One day another neighbor’s dog brought out a mink it had just caught and killed. As a hunter, I’ve seen dogs on the trail of and chasing deer.
It’s springtime, a particularly vulnerable time for some species of birds and wild animals. Some bird species nest on the ground, such as wood thrushes, partridges, ovenbirds, killdeers, wild turkeys and winter wrens. Dogs can disrupt their nests and young. White-tailed deer will be having fawns and dogs can happen upon them.
Cats can have quite a direct impact on wild bird species by hunting and killing them, but they can have an indirect impact as well by killing the prey of wild animals. The mice, moles, frogs, snakes and toads that cats kill are so much less food for weasels, mink and foxes which they need to survive and thrive.
It’s estimated that there are about 75 million pet dogs and 80 million pet cats in the United States. It’s estimated that between 1 million and over 3 million birds are killed every year by pet cats that are allowed to roam outside.
I urge pet owners to be aware of the impact of your pets on other people as well as wildlife. We are all in this world together. We can’t avoid having an impact just by living, but we can minimize our detrimental impacts if we pay attention. Many small impacts and actions can add up to large problem. Our awareness of these impacts and our actions to ameliorate them can help to reduce the negative impacts.
Control your dogs. Don’t let your cats roam.
Czaplinski lives in Warren.
