Animal laws are challenging.
Especially when elephants start making new donkey and dog laws.
Elephants are worried that 600,000 donkeys could destroy their neighborhoods even though there are virtually no reported neighborhoods destroyed by donkeys. But the donkey population is growing, and elephants don’t like that.
Certainly, donkeys could cause damage. In my yard, they might eat my tulips and daffodils or the blossoms on my magnolia trees. Maybe a donkey would be frightened by the eye lashes on my little yellow cat and kick it. A herd of donkeys plundering our neighborhoods could change our way of life.
What really bothers the elephants is that the donkeys may kick them out of their homes, so they are trying to stop the donkey population growth.
Years ago, donkeys only counted if they could read and pay money. Many neighborhoods didn’t allow donkeys. Those laws were tossed out, but elephants are worried again, and believe the best way to protect us (or them) is to require donkeys to carry government-approved photos. The idea is that it’s better to keep ten thousand good donkeys out than to let one bad donkey in.
This picture law may be tough on many donkeys. There are very few donkey photo shops, and many donkeys will have difficulty getting there. The elephants want the donkeys to pay a fee to have their picture taken, and many donkeys don’t carry much money with them.
Elephants are very pleased with themselves because they hate donkeys. Requiring donkeys to carry photos should keep the donkeys away from them.
At the same time, dogs are running wild everywhere.
Dogs are different than donkeys. They roam in masses, mess up yards, and carry bugs. They also scare cats away, and cats scare mice and other rodents away. Worse, bad dogs bite, and their bites can kill. The dog catcher is constantly chasing bad dogs, and occasionally catches one. If the dog is really bad, the dog catcher may put it down.
Over 80% of people think we should do a better job keeping track of dogs. After all, if soldiers have to wear dog tags, shouldn’t dogs wear them?
Responsible dog owners don’t think that dogs are a problem. They love their dogs and say that they need their good dogs to protect them from bad dogs. They point out that Old Yeller didn’t have a dog tag and protected his family from a bad dog. And Lassie solved a new problem every week for years. No one asked Lassie if she had a dog tag.
Most people believe that if dogs were tagged, fewer bad dogs would bite them. Elephants point out that Old Yeller wasn’t tagged 200 hundred years ago so it would be wrong to tag good dogs now.
These animal laws are so confusing. What is it about elephants that want to protect us from a problem we don’t have and don’t want to protect us from a problem we do have?
