Zuzi's Tail - No 14 - Why Can't I Play in the Doggie Park?
My name is Zuzi, and I am a little Shih-Tzu and Toy Poodle mix. I am five years old and weigh ten pounds. For the past several years I played in our doggie park and socialized with my neighborhood canine pals, but now without warning, I have been locked out of my doggie park.
The big, bad insurance company in its Orwellian demand has instructed our HOA that dogs are to be discriminated against in opposition to Section 541 of the Texas Insurance Code which states that it is illegal for insurers to engage in unfair acts. This is unfair because our CCRS state that dogs are allowed without the mention of breed or size or separating large dogs from smaller ones, but now the insurance company wants us to change the language in the CCRS to deny certain breeds and establish new conditions, but we are grandfathered in on page 12.
Further, municipalities and counties are prohibited from enacting breed specific legislation, and Texas Health and Safety Code Section 822.047 prevents local governments from creating laws that ban or restrict specific breeds. Behavior-based regulation is accepted in Texas which regulates "dangerous dogs" on a case-by-case basis defined by their behaviour rather than by breed. By extension, we are protected like our owners from discrimination.
If our present insurer hates dogs, then there are other companies like State Farm who do not discriminate, and who might welcome our business.
The doggie park is not a real dog park because it is only about 50 x 25 feet in size, and you can only fit six people in there, maybe just three if they are overweight. They like to arrive on their golf carts to sit in the dog pen and have an evening gossip about all the bad news while we dogs chase each other.
We all live out here at Lake Conroe for the fresh air and peace, and do not want to be controlled by insurance companies who don't understand our way of life. Since our CCRS did not specify that large dogs had to be separated from small dogs, and some of our neighbors do have large dogs and tiny ones, we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by mandating that they are prohibited from bringing their two dogs into the play pen. That would be discrimination!
Dogs like me, were put on this earth to teach love, loyalty, companionship and forgiveness, and we are not interested in money, politics or religion. We just want everyone to get along and enjoy our community. But it seems the insurer wants to create disharmony where none existed for the simple reason of increasing our fees. Pay up or get locked out! That is blackmail!
What is the insurer going to do about the coyotes that roam around our open fields next to the dog park? And the deer - which everyone here loves - that I always bark at and chase - are they going to increase our insurance because they can't control the wildlife? Big city insurer executives have no understanding of our country way of life. I am just a little dog who wants to play and regulating me would break my spirit.
Alinka and John take me on walkies in the open fields around the lakes and remove my leash so I can run around to get much-needed exercise, but I do miss rubbing noses with my friends in the doggie park that the Fido hater insurers are denying me.
—Zuzi