One of the things you soon learn as a published writer is that all of the so-called rules of the craft are made to be broken from time to time. For example, the rule that a story should never begin with the weather. If the weather is central to your story, there’s nothing at all wrong with it being the opening hook.
There are some rules, in some cases, though, that should not be broken.
These are the rules, the breaking of which can result in injury to yourself or another person.
I never appreciated this until I moved to my current residence, a bucolic, wooded area along in a river in the northern part of the city of Frederick, Maryland. There’s a beautiful woodland walk along the river bank that my wife and I walk almost every day of the week, for exercise and bird watching.
Like most parks, it has signs with rules placed prominently and periodically throughout, such as ‘no littering,’ ‘pick up after your dog,’ and ‘keep your pets leashed.’ Rules, by the way, that are ignored by a significant number of people who use the area. While the littering is disgusting and kind of spoils our walk when we encounter piles of trash carelessly left by picnickers or fishermen, or the piles of dog excrement in the middle of the walking path, it’s the people who routinely let their dogs run free that really get to me.
I have to clarify here that I am a dog person. I love dogs. But, I also know that a dog can be a hazard when its in a stressful situation or encounters strangers, even the most docile and well-trained dog. And people who allow their dogs to run free in a public place where there are tons of strangers, kids, and other dogs, despite the prominent signs telling them not to, are being irresponsible.
I speak from personal experience. While I have on one or two occasions been barked at aggressively by strange dogs, I have extensive experience with canines and know how to back them down. My wife, on the other hand, like many people, tends to panic if a dog acts aggressively toward her, which is an invitation to be bitten—something that’s happened to her twice in the past year. The last time, the dog was big enough, with sharp enough teeth, to require a trip to the emergency room. Fortunately, the wound healed quickly, and after a ten-day quarantine the dog was cleared for rabies, avoiding her having to undergo the painful rabies treatment, but the dog’s owner received a warning from the local animal control agency, and he and his dog are now in the data bank of dog bite incidents. In an earlier incident, a smaller dog snagged her jacket sleeve but didn’t break the skin. We’ve not seen the owner of that dog in the park since that incident.
What’s the moral here? Each of these incidents resulted from an unleashed dog encountering a stranger, being spooked by that stranger, and doing what animals do when they’re frightened—lashing out with the only defense they have. The result of ignoring this common sense rule, especially in the second incident, was a day spoiled for both groups, and a long grip to the ER. Following the rules could have avoided it.
Some rules are just not made to be broken. | NWI
