[MR] Request of clarificaton on furry friends and events

[Alan MacNeill]

As lovely as that would be...let me give you my point of view as the
Seneschal of a group that chooses to ban animals from most of our
events because of previous issues...

Pets that are well behaved at home, aren't at events.  "She's never
done that before" doesn't help when someone just got bit.

Owners that clean up after their pets, don't at events.  Once the
guilty critter has moved on, it is very difficult to identify who's
dog pooped under the troll table.

People who follow the rules and take care of their pets, don't at
events.  We had an incident at Sapphire last year where a dog (who
wasn't even legally on site, as it wasn't a service animal) was left
in a cage in the owner's tent while they went to Court and after
parties.  We found out when the dog's barking disturbed the next camp
over.

People who are generally honest, aren't when it comes to their pets.
That same incident, the camp in question denied the dog's existence,
until directly confronted with "We know it's here, the option is to
come clean, or all of you go home now"

We make it a policy to be very upfront about our policy.  "No animals
allowed other than service animals" appeared in the last two Sapphire
flyers, and on the webpage.  Nobody has an excuse for "I didn't know".
 Yet, that card got played at least twice during the weekend.

So, yes, perhaps we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater,
however, to be blunt, it is a case of the 10% ruining it for the other
90%, like most of the restrictive rules in the SCA are.

I hope that makes the other side of the argument more understandable,

Gorm of Berra
Seneschal, Caer Mear

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 11:23 AM, . . <lizmaekate at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Now, of course, if the site itself bans animals, there is nothing that can be done.   That's up to the site.  However, when it's our own group banning animals, I think we should all strive to not create such blanket bans because of the problems they do cause.  If an animal misbehaves, blame the owner and enact some punishment on that specific person.