[Artemisia] pets at events

[Mark Chapman]

While Ursula is long gone, she attended many events, was always cleaned 
up after. 
She did bit our then 2 year old granddaughter one time (they were under 
the table at Dragon's Tear & Jennifer tried to take the bone from 
Ursula's mouth.  But she still wanted to stay under the table & make 
friends again, Jennifer knew what she did was in the wrong).
We will long remember at one Uprising she was chewing on some rawhide 
scraps (Kian was redoing a shield edge), a white Samoyed  pranced up 
(loose).
Thinking that it could easily take the rawhide away from the smaller dog.
A moment later it left tail between its legs, Ursula spit out some hair 
& went back to HER rawhide, 2 seconds & the lesson was over.
Dogs do not need to be a pushover to be good dogs. They need to be under 
control & respected.
One of the worst injury I have seen at an event was a dog bite, a small 
dog roughhousing  with a young girl on the ground, they knew each other 
very well. 
Our skin is simply not as durable as theirs, accidents will happen!
Is this a reason to preclude them from events, I think not, but I will 
respect the decisions of land owners & event stewards.
I do have a problem with the expanding "service animals" at events as a 
way of evading  pet restrictions.
Service animals need to be licensed, medically prescribed & wear the 
vests that  make it clear to everyone that they are not pets or MRE's, 
but working dogs, there doing a job.
No paper work, No vest, No event attendance!
Ådne