Dogs to scare kids as cops are busy at bottleshops

In our never-ending debate on public drinking, the main question today seems to be whether there was less of it back when the Banned Drinkers Register was in force, or now with the police maintaining a visible presence outside the bottle shops.
 
Council is saying their rangers are finding less public drinking now, and to a point I agree. As I walk my dog along the railway corridor north from Bradshaw Drive, I am finding fewer empty grog containers almost every day.
 
But it would be wrong to think that the story ends there. With so many police tied up outside the bottle shops doing what the BDR used to do, that is filtering access to alcohol, fewer police are available for street patrols.
 
This is especially apparent in the afternoons and evenings, and don’t some kids know it! These kids are street smart.
 
They know full well that neither the police nor the home owners can touch them, and they’re having a ball.
 
As an aside, it’s interesting to reflect that in the almost two decades we have lived in The Gap, my wife and I have gone from having a fence with no gate, to having a fence with a gate, to now having a fence with a padlocked gate.
 
And add a cheeky dog.
 
We used to own only an old dog, one with all the aggression of a goldfish, and some of the bolder, more attitudinal kids took to scaling our fence even when we were at home. So now we have a second dog, a cheeky dog, a dog the kids find scary.
 
Perhaps that’s worth thinking about. What sort of a town do we have when a dog can be said to be earning it’s keep when it scares kids.
 
And having thought about that, are there still those who think dedicated youth workers are not necessary? Or at least cops on neighbourhood patrol?
 
Personally, I would much prefer at least more neighbourhood patrols, but when I asked about this at the police station, I was told the police were busy and would only come if I reported an incident as it was happening.
 
As that will almost always be too little, too late, for now it’s high fences with locked gates and cheeky dogs. This seems to be the way of it all around town, or at least it is for those of us who want to live some of our home life outside.