Regularly at work, I have to restock tie-out cables and “invisible fence” setups (shock collars). These are used by people who “want a dog” but their idea of a dog is part commodity, part social validation, and part desire to subordinate a sentient being. Unwilling to take 4 hours a day of dedicated attention to walking their dog, they will simply put it outside on a leash, turning it into a repressed barking machine of pent-up frustration. I’ve also walked past a house a mile from me that kept a dog all day long in an outdoor cage less than 4 square meters in size.

Everyone who does this is an animal abuser. Dogs need to be social and roaming creatures. I’d like to put a [very polite notice] in the window of these slavers self-styled dog owners. There are millions of them all over America, you can tell because everyone who uses an invisible fence or tie-out cable is someone who’s too lazy to care for a dog, and also because if they were to walk their dogs an hour a day, we’d have better sidewalks and less obesity.