{"id":544,"date":"2025-07-31T17:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T17:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2025-11-08T22:27:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T22:27:15","slug":"youre-breaking-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/31\/youre-breaking-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"You’re Breaking the Law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Breaking the law. Breaking the law. ~Judas Priest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You see this criminal? Breaking the law right before your eyes. Do you see it? Because I sure didn’t. This is my first dog. I don’t know much about dogs other than what I’ve observed from friends and family that have them. And when we got this one, at 50+ pounds, it was clear she was a bull in a china shop and going to be a handful. So we made the decision to have her professionally trained, living with the trainer for a month. Boot camp you could say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she came back a different dog. It’s been a life changer. No longer the wrecking ball. She can come, sit, stay, and stop doing anything on command. She is so good, I can walk her off leash. And that’s where the trouble began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was playing fetch with her at a park when another dog walker approached. Mine barked and walked over investigate, stopping at a respectful distance. Still, I called for her to come back. The other dog owner walks past me and says, “Your dog needs to be on a leash”. I replied, “But she’s under control.”, pointing to her laying at my feet. But then they say something that shot right through my heart: “It’s the law”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was sad, confused, and angry all at once. I thought this couldn’t be right. Really? It’s the law? When I have her under complete voice control? And even an electronic device in my pocket linked to her collar, should the need arise to press that dastardly button? It can’t be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I got home I looked it up, and sure enough: in our county, a dog must be on the leash when not on private property. More sadness, confusion, and anger all at once. When I read the spirit of the law though, it seems to be based on dogs that free roam around the neighborhood. Thou shalt pay a fine for impoundment of wandering ones. Which certainly would not be the case for a man and his obedient frisbee chaser. Right? Right??<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I don’t know. I just don’t know. But it just wouldn’t leave my mind that technically, yea, it’s the law. I can’t argue with that. And I don’t want to deal with ornery leash-walkers over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I changed my behavior. I take her to a distant park. One that is larger, harder to get to, and farther away. And I’ve discovered something… a handful of other folks doing the same thing. A secret society of off leashers. And we keep to ourselves. Leave each other alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I still break the law? Yea, I guess so. But if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You see this criminal? Breaking the law right before your eyes. Do you see it? Because I sure didn’t. This is my first dog. I don’t know much about dogs other than what I’ve observed from friends and family that have them. And when we got this one, at 50+ pounds, it was clear she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnnycarlos.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}