I have a message to all of you dog owners. Now that I am a dog owner myself, I feel that I am well within my rights to now comment and criticize other dog owners– wink, wink.

Dogs go everywhere and anywhere. You can’t really control what bush your dog is going to favour when looking for a spot to pee on while on a walk. Similarly, however embarrassing it is, you can’t really stop Fido from pooping on your neighbour Tommy’s fresh mowed lawn while taking a stroll.

“Sh**” happens. Literally.

But for crying out loud, be a responsible dog owner!

A responsible dog owner will carry baggies and pick up their dog’s poop, then bring the baggy back home and properly dispose of it.

But not in my area.

No. In my neighbourhood, there are people who will let their dog take a dump every single time they go out and will shamelessly keep on strolling without any second thought whatsoever. As my window looks over my neighbour’s yard, I’ve seen it happen many times. I even told a few to act responsibly only to be given the finger. So mature!

Then, there is the mystery person who will go as far as picking up the crap and wrap it in pretty lime green bags, but will leave them right there, on my front lawn.

There is also the one who will go the extra mile and discard of the bags, but in the nearest recycling bin, which happens to be mine…

I don’t get how people can be so disrespectful and inconsiderate.

I love dogs. Well, I love MY dogs, and I don’t mind picking up their mess because I love them, but I don’t want to pick up other people’s messes. I’m sure nobody does. If you choose to get a dog, you should be prepared to care for them completely, not only when you feel like it! Having a dog implies you will love them, feed them, groom them and yes, pick up their doo-doos! And not dropping them in other people’s garbages…

Speaking of Garbage – I live on a main street with a lot of traffic. My driveway is near a bus stop and my four recycle bins are usually lined up alongside my house, in the driveway.

That doesn’t mean they are public places to discard of your trash.

Every week, I find stuff in my recycling bin that I did not put there. People wait for the bus while drinking their coffee or having a cigarette, then put their cups or cigarette packages in my bins.

I have tried to take the bins away to see if it would improve things, but then, I started finding trash in the yard, which is worse!

I appreciate that people are “environment friendly” and try to put their trash away, but perhaps it would be beneficial for the city to put more trash cans around? Especially near bus stops?

Union Gas – I just want to thank Union Gas, for costing a few hundreds of unnecessary dollars and perhaps putting my family at risk.

I smelled gas so I called them to investigate. They came, told me where the leak was, then shut the gas off and put a lock on the lever so I couldn’t turn it back on.

I called a repair company who charged me $138 to fix what the gas company had said was wrong. As the gas was off, it was hard for the repairman to see if it was fixed or not. I called Union Gas back to come turn the gas on when the repair was done. They did.

The next day, I still could smell gas. I called the repairman again. Now that the gas was back on, he easily found the issue, which was NOT what the Union Gas rep had initially said. Another $90 plus parts, plus tax later, my leak is fixed.

What I want to know is how did the Union Gas rep come to the conclusion it was safe to turn the gas back on when the leak was not repaired? Did he even test this? What if it would have been indoors, would we all be dead now?

Rant over…