Dog Rules

[guest@endurance.net]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


The AERC rules DO provide for Ride Managers to deny entry, completion, or
whatever they choose to a participant if that participant breaks a
published ride rule.  Even one about dogs.

I quote from the opening paragraph of the AERC rule book:

"Additional measures may be taken by any ride to provide greater safety
for equine and rider. However, except in the event of emergency, these
additional measures must be explained to the competitors and made
available to them in written form at a pre-ride meeting."

And it does provide for both the ride manager disqualifying and the AERC
supporting a Ride Manager for disqualifying any such person in the
subsequent sentence:

"We not only feel it is necessary to regulate our sport, but also to
penalize infractions and to provide mechanisms for addressing grievances
and appealing decisions."

I am not suggesting that Ride Managers with rules against dogs go on dog
patrol and shine a flashlight in everybody's trailer.  People who sneak
their dogs into camp, keep them in their trailer, and nobody is aware of
them are not the problem  or the reason that some people want the AERC to
have rules about dogs at endurance rides.  The Ride Manager only has to do
something about enforcing their dog rule when they become aware of an
infraction, they don't have to go out looking for offenders.

But the complaint I am hearing from just about everybody is that there are
a few people who think that a ride's dog rules (whatever they may be)
don't apply to them and their dogs, and many ride managers complaining
that they can't enforce their own rules because dog owners are ingorning
them.

I assert that this would not happen if ride managers let participants know
that they are as serious about the ride's dog rules (whatever they may be)
as they are about any of the other published rules of the ride.

And if it came to a protest to the AERC on the part of a disqualified
riders, the AERC needs to let people know that they are as serious about
allowing/insisting ride managers to enforce their dog rules as they are
about allowing/insisting that ride managers enforce any of the other AERC
rules.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  All of this presupposes that ride managers and the AERC are serious
about enforcing other ride rules too (including those in the AERC Rule
Book which DO apply to all riders at all rides).  Historically, ride
managers' and the AERC's track record has not been particularly good on
this aspect, but I have seen a subtle shift in the direction of "let's
enforce the rules that we already have."

The AERC rules are already firmly in place providing ride managers with
the support that they need to apply whatever rules about dogs that they
want to at their rides.  All that is required is for both ride managers
and the AERC to be consistent in actually doing so.