There is an old legend circulating in our city, that not too long ago a tourist named Holger arrived at our gates, thinking that he was about to enter Paris. After existing the Nova Scotia Art Gallery, he was heard muttering that he always thought the Louvre was a bit bigger. Then he went to search for Arc de Triomphe and wound up at the Rotary. That was the last anyone ever saw of him.

Now granted, this could be a tall tale, but at first glance, it is easy to see why Holger and his ilk would confuse our great city with that little hamlet to the East. Thus, Paris is - at this very moment - besieged by rioters using schools and busses as impromptu barbeques, while in Halifax, an angry Ms. Sheppard just phoned her city counsellor, complaining that the cat next door has dug up her fall bulbs. In both cases, the politicians appear powerless to stop the chaos.

The similarities don’t end there, though. Take our artists for example. It is with great pride that we can state that our bunch is every bit as surly, pretentious and under-worked as the French lot.  If there ever were a competition between NASDAD and , say, the École Emile Cohl , it would not be a waste of five bucks to bet that our  troops would easily win the worst dressed and the ‘most novel use of the word conceptual  ’ competition. If cities were only judged my the number of non-conformist dressed in virtually identical non-conformist ways , Halifax would long been known as the Paris of the West, or the New York of the North by North East .

Still, there is one major clue for tourists who are not quite sure in which capital they are currently adding to their T-shirt collection : dog shit.  Anyone who has ever visited the city of lights is well aware that, after the revolution, French dogs gained the constitutional  right to relieve themselves on any sidewalk of their choosing. After the second Republic came into being, French dog owners were ordered not to pick up after the pet, since all animal feces became  property of the people (“vive la merde du people”) and thus could not be disturbed. Today, Parisians of all stripes take pride in the unique shuffle they learn in childhood, which allows them to effortlessly sidestep the fecal landmines on their trottoirs . Tourist, on the other hand, are merde out of luck.

Here in Halifax, we are kinder to our visitors. By Bylaw, dogs are mandated to relieve themselves on those small strips of grass that were incorporated into our cityscape for just that purpose. Owners of said dogs must, at all times, carry on their persons no less then three plastic bags of various sizes, preferably without holes.  Excretions have to be picked up within 5.6 seconds after deposit. Failing to do so will bring down the full force of the law, as I found out last week.

The whole thing started quite innocently. I was standing on the corner of Morris and South, chatting with an old friend, when all of a sudden a voice came out of seemingly nowhere telling me to “pick up after your dog”. The sound in question was not to be confused with the booming bass a certain Mr. Moses was rumoured to have heard. Instead, it resembled the waling of a hysterical hyena that had just been told by its vet to stay off meat for a few months.   Naturally, I was annoyed and told the screecher to kindly bugger off and do things to himself for which he could get arrested in the Bible Belt. Slightly shocked, he muttered something about the “dog police”, and existed stage left.

Having forgotten about the incident, I was deep in thought when 20 minutes later a van marked “SPCA” raced to a slow halt, and out popped an officious looking hat wearer .  When he asked for my name, I did what all good Nova Scotians do when snoopers come around and told him it was “Donald Duck”.

The hat wearer seemed unimpressed: it must not have been the first time that he had dealt with an obstinate by-law breaker, that most hideous of savages. “Sir”, he said calmly ” I must ask you again”. He then added that there “would be consequences” if I refused to co-operate.

Naturally, I smiled at his threat. After all, what powers could an officer of the Special Canine Police Association (for that is what I understood the acronym to stand for) pose? “My name is Rita and I live at the Seahorse Tavern“ , I insisted nonchalantly ….

Back in the eighties, I was always wondering what all the “Free Nelson Mandela” stuff was all about.  Sitting in a prison for one’s political beliefs with heaps of books and paper was, what I thought, a charming way to become a hero. Better then having to fall on a grenade, I kept thinking.  Now I understood.

As jails go, our Halifax correction centre probably rates three stars out of four in the tourist guides. Still, I was fuming. Why all this force for a pile of dog dung? So what if I tried to stuff the by-law officer’s by-law ticket back into the shirt pocket from whence it came? Wasn’t that just a political act ? Don’t dogs have rights ? Why were cats allowed to crap wherever they damn well please, while my dog had to make do with a thin piece of grass? Where was the justice? I was going to fight for his and my rights. It was the Nova Scotian thing to do.

Still, there was a nagging suspicion in my mind, that something was amiss…. And then in dawned on me:  I did not actually own a dog. Can’t  stand the beasts . It might have something to do with my childhood spent on the sidewalks of Paris.

Frank Streicher is a Halifax based receptionist, who regularly lies to his three readers. Sources tell us that he does own a dog, even though he stepped into their excrements on a daily basis while living in France for seven years.