Stepping back from the trees (or the shrubbery) to see the forest

Do you ever get the feeling that some people suffer from what might be called mental constipation?

Let me explain. I was out walking one of our dogs in the neighborhood the other day when Aquinnah stopped to sniff a bush in someone's yard, adjacent to the city sidewalk. Suddenly, I heard a woman’s voice calling down to me from the second-story window of a nearby house.

“Your dog isn’t going to go to the bathroom there, is he?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “If he does, I’ll pick it up.” My wife and I always carry plastic bags while walking the dogs, so we can bring home any calling cards they may leave behind.

“I don’t want him peeing there either,” the woman shouted, obviously displeased by my lack of contrition. "It will yellow the shrubbery.”

Aquinnah and I walked away, but not before I told the poop and pee patrolwoman to have a nice day, in a voice that probably was edged with more sarcasm than the situation required.

Don't get me wrong. That homeowner has every right to keep me, my dogs and anyone else she doesn’t like off her property. I don’t question that for one second.

But it’s not as if Aquinnah, a generally well-behaved chocolate lab, was loose and digging up her flower bed, mauling her cat, growling at her kid, baying at the moon in the middle of the night or pawing through her trash. He was leashed and quietly sniffing a bush in broad daylight, while I stood on the public sidewalk.

My point is this. Having the right to do something - in this case, tell me and my dog to skedaddle - doesn't necessarily mean you have to exercise that right.

Needless to say, Aquinnah and I will keep our distance from that yard in the future. I’ll also resist the temptation to march up to the front door of the house, ring the bell and offer five words of much-needed advice to Aquinnah's nemesis: “Lady, life is too short.”