Letters to Rockville Centre Herald July 15 2010

Limiting certain breeds of dogs makes sense

To the Editor:

Dogs come in breeds, unless they're mutts like me. These breeds have been bred for hundreds of years to respond in particular ways. If you want a dog to look after your small kids, I suggest an Australian sheepdog. If you have a pool, get a Chesapeake Bay retriever or a Newfoundland. If you want a clown who will insist on riding in the front seat with the window rolled down so he can hang his head out the window, try a Labrador. Rottweilers, Dobermans and pit bulls are guard dogs. They are easily trained to guard and also to attack. It's in their genes. They have a purpose.

Like all breeds, there are easily trainable ones and hard-to-manage ones. Every bird hunter has stories of dogs that were gems and those who weren't worth their feed. More to the point, there are many people who buy guard dogs to satisfy their need to intimidate others. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to license people to own dogs on the basis of the owners' personalities.

Limiting breeds that can cause serious harm to others makes sense. No one "needs" these breeds, just as no one "needs" a Glock 9mm to protect their home. When I was growing up in Rockville Centre in the 1950s we had a female collie, Lassie. She protected our property. No other dog, including a big male boxer who used to run loose, ever entered our yard.

Lassie was my dog. She protected me. Once, when I was about 6 years old, I had done something to cause my mother to throw me over her knee to give me a few spanks. Before she could commence, I heard her chuckling. She let me up, and Lassie was standing there.

"You've got a good friend there," my mother said. "When she saw me about to spank you, she firmly grabbed my wrist in her jaws. She didn't growl, or even put her ears back. She just wasn't going to let go until I let you up!"

That's my favorite dog story.

Buy a collie. It will herd your kids, protect them from spankings and, if necessary, kill intruding wolves. That's what they were bred for.

And instead of a gun, try bear spray. I stopped a nosy 300-pound black bear with one. Of course, I didn't have Lassie.

Ed Thorp

Rockville Centre

Modernize village

departments

To the Editor:

As I sit with my village tax bill on my desk, ready to pay it, I find it curious that some village departments are still in the dark ages.

When I called the Department of Public Works to send an e-mail with a picture to report a sidewalk problem, at first they told me to send it via "snail mail" or fax it. Eventually, after having to get the deputy superintendent on the phone to get a straight answer, I was given an Optimum Online e-mail address. Frankly, I was shocked. Why is a village department using a Cablevision account?

It is clearly time for all village departments, as the Police Department has already done, to join the 21st century and have their own accounts on a village-run server. And frankly, the folks who answer the phone at DPW ought to be more technologically astute, so when someone asks to e-mail a picture to them, it isn't treated as though it's a request for moon dust.

Ted D. Gluckman

Rockville Centre

Parking increases add to small

businesses’ woes

To the Editor:

I am writing in regard to the recent increase in parking rates in Rockville Centre. I own Healthworks Massage Therapy on South Park Avenue, and have been here for 10 years now. As a business owner, like many others, I am struggling to survive here. The rents are high, the parking is terrible and now a rate increase, in times like these, when the economy is suffering, is putting an even bigger damper on my business.

Many of my clients are complaining about the recent increase and are threatening to go elsewhere to shop. I have an acupuncturist on staff who has decided that at the end of his lease in May 2011, he will be leaving because of the parking issues and increases.

If the Chamber of Commerce and the mayor care anything about small businesses, they should ask us business owners why the storefronts are empty and no one is shopping and supporting small businesses. Yes, the economy is a factor, but there is a good deal more to it than that.

Come next May, when my lease expires, I don't know if I will keep my business here any longer because I won't have the clientele to support it.

As we all know, by supporting small businesses, you support the economy. If Rockville Centre wants only banks, restaurants and nail places, well, I wish them luck.

Cheryl Shapiro

Rockville Centre