Charlie Ashmont, Dorchester, Mass. Feb. 14, 2004. What a good boy.
Reindeer in Dorchester!
It may be time I just give up and move into the guest room.
The first thing I saw upon arriving home today.
This is turning into a pet blog isn't it? Sorry, but he makes it so easy.
Here's Charlie Ashmont, and he's thinking "Look at my winkie! Look at my winkie! Look at it while I rub myself in something that died in the grass here. Are you looking?"
Yesterday, at the park, seven girls, maybe 10 or 11 years old approached and asked if they could say hi to Charlie. They formed a semi-circle, and with fourteen hands, petted the little beast. He moved in a circle, kissing each one in succession. Completing the circle, he turned back to me, sat, and looked up, as if to say, "it's cookie time." Yes, Charlie Ashmont, for that performance, you definitely earned a cookie.
It has become apparent that I must find a bigger house with a bigger bedroom into which I can put a bigger bed, because the current situation here is working out for only one of the house's occupants.
I laugh when people tell me about dogs that wake them up at 5 a.m. This is what I find every morning around quarter to 11.
I was just ticketed for walking Charlie Ashmont in Boston without a muzzle, violating Boston's asinine Pit Bull ordinance. On the $100 citation, I am referred to as "suspect." I was standing at the corner of Dorchester Ave and Ashmont, waiting for the light to change, Charlie sitting quietly at my side. Cop said he would be taking the dog, but there was no one at Animal Control right now to come get him. Can you imagine if they took him? My poor dog with his three chronic conditions requiring 12 pills a day, who spent 5 days last month hospitalized at Angell? So, we will be driving to Milton or Quincy twice a day now to walk. And if you asked me right this minute, I’d say we might also start looking for a house outside of the city limits. How messed up would that be? I'm not exactly shy about volunteering lots of time to make Dorchester, where I was born, a better place to live. Not sure why I bother some days. He's always on leash outside and always within my control, and I’m not making him wear a muzzle.
For the record, I do not dispute that I was in violation of the current Boston Pit Bull Ordinance, and I will be paying the fine. I am merely expressing an opinion about the unfairness, vagueness and ineffectiveness of the 6-year-old ordinance.
