If people run free, why not dogs?

An ode to canine anarchy circa '70s Athens

You think Athens is a dog-friendly place now? Ask anyone who lived here 30 to 40 years ago, and they'll tell you that the city is now a veritable concentration camp for dogs compared to the old days.

In the faraway land of '60s and '70s Athens, dogs pretty much owned the town, and wandered far and wide with minimal control by either their owners or the city government.

On a sunny fall day on the College Green, one could watch dozens of dogs, of all shapes, breeds and sizes, cavorting with their owners, other dogs or strangers, often with no sign that anybody had control of them. Leashes were virtually unknown at the time, and if the city had a dog catcher then, I never saw him.

Most student dog owners back then - and a lot of non-students as well - thought nothing of letting their dogs cruise at will. Maybe it was a cultural thing at the time because I remember that many families in my hometown routinely allowed Fido and Lucky to cruise their neighborhoods. After college, while living out West, my wife and I frequently let Zero and Jasper, our two mutts, wander the small town where we lived. Sometimes, they'd come home, proudly dragging gnawed-over deer carcasses and bones, or stinking to high heaven from rolling in guts, manure or both.

Upon moving back East, and living in Glendale, W.Va., we learned our lesson about letting the dogs loose. One New Year's eve, out in front of our rented house atop a ridge overlooking the Ohio River, Zero stepped in front of the car, and quickly lived up to her name, though the verb "lived" is a bit misleading.

That taught me a hard lesson, though looking back through the lens of time, I'm shocked that folks were so sanguine about their dogs back then.

DON'T MISUNDERSTAND ME. I'm not trying to say it was all bad. Having a town where friendly, panting dogs approach you, accept a pat, and then go about their doggy way can be a charming thing, and that's what I remember about Athens circa 1973-77 when I attended school here.

In another forum, I've told the story of how my friend Jim's mutt/golden retriever, Ernie, wandered into my English class in Ellis Hall, unattended, one morning, and made himself at home in the back of the classroom. About halfway through the class, he sat up and started howling.

Then there was Wylie, my friend Blair's "Benji-type" dog. Smartest pooch I've ever known, and the Prouty brothers (Jim and Bill), also friends of Blair, can vouch for that. Wylie was so tuned into his master's habits that he knew exactly which bars Blair frequented. So if Wylie wandered off and then later couldn't find Blair, he would wait in front of Blair's favorite bar, and then when the door opened, slide in and look for his master. If Blair wasn't there, Wylie would just scoot down to the number two bar on his list, then number three, and more often than not, he'd eventually find Blair.

On spring evenings, my friends and I would occasionally break into the old campus natatorium (behind Gordy Hall) for an illegal nocturnal swim, and take Ernie and Wyle along with us. Both dogs would swim right along with us human beings. (For some reason, breaking into a place for a swim qualifies for a moral exemption from the general rule that breaking into places is a really bad thing to do. Just ask all the students who routinely skinny-dip in a certain local condominium complex's pool.)

Anyway, back in the old days when dogs ruled our fair city, it was a much simpler, laissez faire time and place. I'm not saying we should return to those days, but they did have a certain doggy charm.