Life, Liberty and Barking
Amid all the violence and emotional turmoil of this new war that enters our homes and minds with the sterile click of a remote, it may be encouraging, even therapeutic, to ponder a recent decision on the free-speech home front. An Ohio appeals court has ruled that people may talk back to a dog, even a police dog.
About 18 months ago, Jeremy Gilchrist, who was chronologically 21 at the time, was walking in Athens, Ohio, down, appropriately enough, Court Street. It was very late one night or very early one morning. Gilchrist spotted Pepsie, a police dog on duty under the command of K-9 Officer Krishea Osborne. Pepsie anxiously waited in a police car while the officer prepared a stopped car for a thorough nose search.
Gilchrist, who may or may not have been doing what 21-year-olds are legally entitled to do and can find themselves suffering the effects of very late at night or very early in the morning, began addressing the dog. Now, before news consumers pass judgment about the advisability, usefulness or wisdom of sassing an excited police dog, even one confined in a nearby car, they should probably remind themselves that Americans are known for talking to animals.
There’s apparently a strong Yankee need to converse with other creatures. Visit any U.S. zoo and you are likely to witness humans talking Monkey to monkeys, whistling to birds and even tapping on glass cases to greet fish or poisonous snakes. At home after work, some grown-up humans, even well-educated ones, have been known to address dogs and cats, inquiring after their health and sharing news with a creature that shows no sign of comprehension whatsoever but remains adoringly attentive to the human holding food. Unlike, say, broadcast personalities who rudely refuse to acknowledge even the wittiest ripostes by angry viewers scoffing at their deaf TV screens.
The one-sided chats with our little friends are typically conducted in Human. Gilchrist rebutted Pepsie in Dog. He barked back at the dog, later claiming it was a joke. Confronted with human insolence, rudeness and, who knows, maybe poor pronunciation, Deputy Pepsie took the human barking as taunting. The dog grew quite agitated, which caused Officer Osborne to grow agitated, which led to an arrest. And now to this long court case. The 4th Ohio District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s dismissal. It did not address the police dog’s right to free barking but did rule that enforcing an Ohio law against taunting police dogs and horses violated Gilchrist’s right to free speech, albeit speech unintelligible to humans.
You may now click to resume normal war programming.
