December 12, 2007
Haight, Gutterpunks, and Dogs
We were in the Upper Haight last night, walking with friends along the street to the Magnolia for a late-ish dinner. We walked past a small group of punk-ish kids sitting on the street with a "give us some money [insert ironic saying here]" sign. They were talking with a guy who was standing there with a beautiful husky dog on a leash. We'll repeat - that dog was gorgeous.
As we passed by, the dog lunged out and clamped its jaws on our friend's leg. The bite broke no skin, but it scared the hell out of our friend. She told us what happened as we walked on (we hadn't seen the bite), and we were kind of stunned. Then the dog-wielding dude walked up and passed us, munching on a slice of pizza.
Our friend told him to "control your dog, or go back to Marin."
Arguments, the SFPD, and animal welfare after the jump!
He said "fuck off," and kept walking.
She said "You shouldn't be allowed to have a dog..."
He kept walking up Haight Street.
Our friend lives on Haight Street, and deals with the gutter punks sleeping on her stairs nearly every day. There's a tacit agreement in Upper Haight - the punks don't bug the residents, and the residents don't call the cops. That guy crossed the line. We called 311, got the number for Park Station dispatch, and reported the guy to the SFPD. They took our name and number, and told us that officers would be in the area soon.
They weren't kidding. Thirty seconds after we sat down, two cars showed up. We (SFist and our friend) went out to talk to them, and told them the whole story. They told us that the guy was known to them, a kid who hangs out in the Haight, they were going to try to look for him, and asked us what did we want to do?
We were, honestly, flummoxed. We didn't want them to bring animal control in and put the dog down - that pooch is owned by someone who doesn't know how to control him, and...is it right to kill an animal because the owner is an idiot? We basically said that if they saw him, tell him to keep the dog out of the pedestrian walkway, and tell him to make sure it didn't happen again. They thanked us and we went in to eat.
It was frustrating. That dog would have been adopted by the SPCA in days - it was White Fang beautiful. But, if we'd ask them to call in animal control, it probably would have been euthanized.
So...did we do the right thing? We're not sure. If that dog bites another person, is it on us? Should the SFPD be in the business of enforcing animal welfare? Most of the kids up there consider themselves homeless by choice. Should they be allowed to inflict their choices on animals?
Pic of a homeless kid with a dog from flickr user Franco Folini, used under a Creative Commons license
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Why not just put the gutter punk down and put the dog up for adoption? The dog provides more value to society than some trust fund baby who wants to play homeless for kicks. I'll bet his mommy and daddy hose his skanky ass off in the back yard before they allow him into their McMansion at night for bedtime.
Why not just put the gutter punk down and put the dog up for adoption? The dog provides more value to society than some trust fund baby who wants to play homeless for kicks. I'll bet his mommy and daddy hose his skanky ass off in the back yard before they allow him into their McMansion at night for bedtime.
First of all these kids aren't from Marin. Where does that idea come from?
Secondly your focus on the animals is odd but somehow fitting
The residents don't care, so your sup doesn't care so the cops don't care. About as simple as it gets
You know what, I think you should have called animal control. I love dogs - have always had one since I was a kid. But a dog who lunges and bites - unprovoked - doesn't matter how beautiful the dog, the dog should be put down. What if you were walking with a small child, or an elderly person?
You know what, I think you should have called animal control. I love dogs - have always had one since I was a kid. But a dog who lunges and bites - unprovoked - doesn't matter how beautiful the dog, the dog should be put down. What if you were walking with a small child, or an elderly person?
I say the mongrel should be forcibly removed from the Haight and immediately euthanized before something worse happens. Meanwhile, the Husky should be rehabilitated and put up for adoption.
If the dog bit your friend for no reason, it will bite again.
Next time , it might be a kid's head.
You should have asked the cops to take the dag and the kid to animal control to be put in cages.
The "dangerous animal" laws are on the books for a reason.
I say the mongrel should be forcibly removed from the Haight and immediately euthanized before something worse happens. Meanwhile, the Husky should be rehabilitated and put up for adoption.
great story. i really don't understand why we let homeless people have pets. totally uncool and cruel. these people cannot take care of themselves, let alone an animal. they use the animal for sympathy to get money, as anyone can tell. where do we draw the line? maybe this is one of those issues we can get support for to go after these people. make it illegal for them to own pets, as it should be.
as for this incident, i think you should have called animal control. that dog has serious issues to have stirken out at you and what if the next victim is a baby in a stroller?
people rescue dogs all the time from the shelter so do not feel like he would have no chance at getting a better home, one that would show him how to there is an alternative to being homeless by choice to beg for food and scraps in between being high all day and night.
great story. i really don't understand why we let homeless people have pets. totally uncool and cruel. these people cannot take care of themselves, let alone an animal. they use the animal for sympathy to get money, as anyone can tell. where do we draw the line? maybe this is one of those issues we can get support for to go after these people. make it illegal for them to own pets, as it should be.
as for this incident, i think you should have called animal control. that dog has serious issues to have stirken out at you and what if the next victim is a baby in a stroller?
people rescue dogs all the time from the shelter so do not feel like he would have no chance at getting a better home, one that would show him how to there is an alternative to being homeless by choice to beg for food and scraps in between being high all day and night.
Why not just put the gutter punk down and put the dog up for adoption? The dog provides more value to society than some trust fund baby who wants to play homeless for kicks. I'll bet his mommy and daddy hose his skanky ass off in the back yard before they allow him into their McMansion at night for bedtime.
It makes me sick that those brats feel entitled to lowering the quality of life of those innocent animals. Why don't they adopt rats or pigeons or something more appropriate for their lifestyle?
You did the best you could under the circumstances.
great story. i really don't understand why we let homeless people have pets. totally uncool and cruel. these people cannot take care of themselves, let alone an animal. they use the animal for sympathy to get money, as anyone can tell. where do we draw the line? maybe this is one of those issues we can get support for to go after these people. make it illegal for them to own pets, as it should be.
as for this incident, i think you should have called animal control. that dog has serious issues to have stirken out at you and what if the next victim is a baby in a stroller?
people rescue dogs all the time from the shelter so do not feel like he would have no chance at getting a better home, one that would show him how to there is an alternative to being homeless by choice to beg for food and scraps in between being high all day and night.
What everyone else said.
Your concern for the dog is very touching. It says a lot of really great things about you as a human being. You're clearly going to heaven. But man oh man, this story reads like a case study in the dangers of excess liberalism. Here you have Gutterpunk X, who is 1) vagrant 2) panhandling, 3) racking up police priors and 4) neglecting a violent dog who 5) has just bitten your friend. And all she does is ask for the fuzz to have a friendly chat, so the gutterpunk can, um, hey maybe obey the law, and stuff?
She should be 7 kinds of pissed. What if the teeth had broken the skin? What if, like Mariconsoy or Cindy said, it had been a child? What if the dog was infected with canine distemper or parvo or rabies or any of the other stuff that dogs get when their owners are negligent?
Is it right to kill an animal because the owner is an idiot? Yes. Not only that, it's our duty. No one at Animal Control euthanizes pets because they want to. They do it because someone has to take responsibility for these poor creatures, White Fang or not.
That's what I hate about Haight gutterpunks. They're rarely homeless because they sincerely can't find shelter. They're just shitheads making a lifestyle choice. They know it, we know it, and they know we know it. And your friend should be indignant about the whole situation, not just holding this peaceful little détente with the local fucktards out of fear of being pegged uptight or out of touch with the spirit of the Haight.
Either it's her neighborhood or it isn't. It takes a village, blah, blah, blah.
By the way, many apologies for the multiple postings. No, I don't like to see my name all over the place - I guess I'm just impatient and kept hitting the Post button. :)
I think SF ACC does everything it can to avoid euthanizing animals:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/acc_index.asp?id=6656
A dog that is biting people for no reason on the street may be perfectly normal. The shelter will do the right evaluations before "sending it to live with a farmer in the country".
It's that or someone gets rabies shots, either from being bitten by the dog or the street punk.
A dog like that might be save-able if it's not living on the street with some dumbass street kid who some some f*cking documentary on "the 60's", and is living the lie of the hippie Haight lifestyle (dead for 40 years) and generally being a total f*ckup.
Seriously, can we have the Mayor or the Governor or someone record some PSA's to be broadcast around the world saying "Dear Rest of the World: The 60s' are deader than Jerry Garcia and SF is a very expensive place to live. Do not come here and think you're gonna live on the streets and live some phony lie of a lifestyle, screwing up our City, while taking away resources from the people who need them. We will send your hippie ass on a bus to wherever you came from with a nice big boot print on your ass courtesy of the SFPD. Thank you."
Yeah, by "A dog that is biting people for no reason on the street may be perfectly normal" I meant "A dog that is biting people for no reason on the street may be perfectly normal if given proper attention and discipline, and removed from its stressful environment."
Sheesh, if I was around those drug-addled idiots all day I;d bite people for no reason, too.
Animals in SF are serious business. If you call Animal Control, they'll be right over to snatch that pooch up. It is probably for the best, the dog needs a stable environment, not a life on the street where he may or may not get a proper meal and care. SF is a dog city, and if the pup was as pretty as you say, he'd be snatched up by a loving home in no time.
Good comments, all...I've sent some emails to some animal control people asking for their opinion on who to call and what to say in that situation, and I'll post an updated when I hear from them.
I don't care how beautiful the dog is, if he bites someone, he needs to be quarantined. Maybe he gets adopted, maybe he doesn't, but ACC does know what they're doing in this matter.
The fuckup, on the other hand, did the cops even write him a ticket? This could easily be misdemeanor or even felony reckless endangerment in other, more civilized, towns.
I wonder what Coalition For Homelessness and/or Sister Bernie Galvin have to say about all this?
One thing I should have mentioned - by the time the cops got there (and they were quite fast), the guy was already gone in the night towards Buena Vista Park. They really didn't have much of a chance of finding him...
I heard an interesting theory as to why a lot of them get dogs in the first place. Although I'm sure there are some generous dog lovers in the gutterpunk crowd, apparently a prominent reason they acquire them is cops. It seems like it would be a bit more of a hassle to detain and process someone when they have a dog with them and nowhere to put the dog afterward. You can't just arrest some transient and leave his mangled dog sitting on the sidewalk with no one to watch it. That's not to say that the gutterpunks do a better job, it's just that it doesn't work that way. So due to the circumstances, it becomes more clear as to why there are so many ignored warnings from police occurring constantly in the Haight. Anyone else have thoughts/theories on this facet of the issue?
What sangfroid and greg said.
Also, I would have told the cops that I wanted to press charges against the gutterpunk for criminal negligence. And the dog should have been scooped up and euthanized. Sucks, yes, but the world is sucky too and being a grownup means acknowledging that and not pretending its la-la land. Give someone an inch, and they'll take a mile and all that.
Also, as far as why gutterpunks have dogs. I'd assume its similar to the same reasons why street punks & gangbangers in general have dogs. Generally speaking, you don't see them running around with dachsunds and beagles and Pomeranians, do you? No, its pit pulls and various large sized mutts and such. Why - because they're "tough" dogs that can be used to bite people, intimidate people, etc. They play a similar role to having a knife or gun in your pocket - they are extensions of their criminal behavior.
What sangfroid and greg said.
Also, I would have told the cops that I wanted to press charges against the gutterpunk for criminal negligence. And the dog should have been scooped up and euthanized. Sucks, yes, but the world is sucky too and being a grownup means acknowledging that and not pretending its la-la land. Give someone an inch, and they'll take a mile and all that.
Also, as far as why gutterpunks have dogs. I'd assume its similar to the same reasons why street punks & gangbangers in general have dogs. Generally speaking, you don't see them running around with dachsunds and beagles and Pomeranians, do you? No, its pit pulls and various large sized mutts and such. Why - because they're "tough" dogs that can be used to bite people, intimidate people, etc. They play a similar role to having a knife or gun in your pocket - they are extensions of their criminal behavior.
And they'll abandon the dogs anyway when they fuck off home for the winter.
Hey everybody, just keep hitting that Post button!
I see sfist has lured the chronicle readers.
This is why I walk down Waller to go from place to place on Haight street. Fucking smelly gutterpunks. I agree, I think the person should be put down. There are REAL homeless people in this city with REAL problems. I don't have time for their stupid asses.
Sorry, I'm just having a rough day.
Jesus fucking Christ!! Just because a kid happens to be homeless doesn't mean he should be fucking euthanized! or his/her dog. Have you ever actually talked to some of these kids? Their life stories are not pretty and alot of the "obnoxiousness" that they display is simply a reaction to a) yuppie shitheels that tend to write what you write b) their extremely awful family lives. This isn't Telegraph Av in Berkeley. Some of those kids are slumming. Here these folks are often runaways from other towns and shittier situations. That means that it's better/easier for them to sit on the street and spange and be drunk than it was tom, oh, I don't know, be abused by their alcoholic step-dads. Not to say that this is the life story of every kid out there or that there are no genuine asshole here. FYI I am not a troll, so if you'd like to discuss this further you can send me an e-mail at alex@alexpolotsky.com
Yeah. I thought the older grumpier folks read the Chron and some what progressive folks read the SFIST. Or am I totally wrong> These comments would suggest otherwise.
So "some of these kids" have ugly histories. OK, I can understand that. What about the others, or their dogs?
And where I come from people call the cops on abusive step-dads.
the dog has no control over it's situation and may be aggressive because it is abused, unsocialized or both. like others have said, it could also bit someone seriously.
ACC will contact rescue groups to make them aware that the animal has been picked up. the rescue groups will pick it up right away, especially if it is an animal that can be adopted with some work. they do not shy away from animals with issues.
however, if the dog is so aggressive it is dangerous they will put it down. the rescue groups will do their absolute best to make sure it is rescued if it is at all possible to work with the dog's issues.
from knowing someone in the local husky rescue, i would say that they definitely would have recommended calling ACC.
It sucks, but given the opportunity I would have wanted to see the guy cited - he was being an entitled shit and was teaching his dog to be the same. If they did take the dog away, hopefully it would have been evaluated for adoption before euthanization.
Plenty of people with bad childhoods do not grow up to be entitled shits, so it's not an excuse for their behavior (please note I'm not talking specifically about the kids living on Haight street - acting like an entitled shit can transcend both cultural and socioeconomical boundaries; besides, I'm sure not all of the kids living there are like the guy in question).
Yeah. I thought the older grumpier folks read the Chron and some what progressive folks read the SFIST. Or am I totally wrong> These comments would suggest otherwise.
Right. Because SFist commentors are somewhat dog bite averse, they're "grumpy" and therefore less progressive.
That's cute. It couldn't possibly be that the gutterpunk ethos is, by any objective measure, bullshit.
why don't we put people down like we do dogs/cats? i'm serious. when did it become acceptable to put down these helpless animals that cannot fend for themselves and why can't we apply that same societal acceptance standard to these people that chose to live on the street? they are helpless and have no home. why don't we put them to sleep? seriously!!!
I have three dogs, one a slightly unpredictable terrier. Even though he is much, much more civilized/socialized now that we live in the city and I've worked with him, the idea of him biting someone is my worst nightmare.
It's not that the dog bit your friend that makes me think you should have pressed charges. It's the guy's cavalier attitude about it. If he allows his dog to do this to someone, he's going to allow it the next time, and the next, until someone gets seriously hurt. Then this innocent dog gets euthanized simply because his owner was an ignorant dick who didn't properly care for his dog.
If they took the dog away from him NOW, the dog could probably be socialized and released to a caring family.
But I don't blame you for being unsure of what to do. I'd have been so shocked, I have no idea what I would have done.
I saw a homeless guy downtown last year, at winter. It was pouring rain and COLD. He was sitting there in a short sleeved t-shirt, holding his coat over his dog. Thinking about it still makes me tear up. So I'd hesitate to issue a blanket statement that no homeless people should own dogs, though. I've seen too many for whom their dog is their entire support system. They love their dogs, and their dog loves them back unconditionally. This is all the other has.
This whole conversation really just stems from the overarching issue of what to do with the homeless. I've lived in the Haight going on 3 years now and I've gotten pretty jaded about the whole thing. At the risk of sounding like a total bastard, it's really hard to continue seeing certain homeless people as humans after a certain point. That's why I think it's really easy to feel for a dog, who doesn't know any better / hasn't taught any better, than to recognize the situation that the owner might be in.
Should the dog be euthanized because the owner, quite frankly, sucks? I don't think so. But there's a reason why you see a LOT of pitbulls tethered to these people. The stories I've heard boil down to protection.
But think about it. Would we have these dog situations if we didn't have such an overabundance of the people that feel they require them? Further, a number of these kids have never lived in San Francisco. A bunch are just passing through. Why is this allowed or why do these people feel they can come to San Francisco in the first place to be homeless? There's a limit to the benefit of compassionate liberalism and some of these people are examples of that.
I'd like nothing more than to give everyone - regardless of whether they're drug addicts, people who have fallen on hard times, drifters, etc - a second chance. But why does it seem that San Francisco alone has to bear this burden? If some people do make this a destination where they can BE homeless, why aren't the communities from whence they came responsible to a certain extent?
Grrrrr. The whole thing is just frustrating as all get out. People have the right to live how they want, but others have the right not to live in fear of harassment and dog bites....
Anyone? Anyone?
what if we all collectively started telling 3 homeless people everyday to 'fuck off and die'
in time, they might get the message and move to santa cruz
I can't believe kids like this are STILL hanging out on Haight street. This was going on 15 years ago when I was in high school. They were just as dirty, rude and annoying then as they are now.
Save the dog, put the kid down.
I can't believe kids like this are STILL hanging out on Haight street. This was going on 15 years ago when I was in high school. They were just as dirty, rude and annoying then as they are now.
Save the dog, put the kid down.