Ridley is a very lucky dog.

Maria and I often go to the movies in Williamstown, Mass., a college town and an affluent town with a world-class theater company and a downtown that is booming – not a single empty storefronts.

Down the street from the theater is a liquor store, and on a nice day, you can usually find Ridley, the store dog, sitting out front quietly greeting customers and looking out at the world.

Ridley is probably hugged and patted and fussed over by hundreds of people a day, there was a line waiting to hug him and admire him this afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago, I put a photo up of Ridley and a number of people messaged me right away concerned that the dog was tethered and being mistreated.

I sometimes the forget social media is now patrolled by all kinds of militias, including the animal police, ever alert for any signs of abuse or human evil.

The way I look at it is this. All you have to do is glance at Ridley to see how well groomed and exercised and socialized and cared for he is. He is a beautiful dog and a very sweet one.

His owner works at the cash register/counter about five feet just inside of the store.

Ridley can go inside any time he wants – he is only outside when it is warm and the door can be left open. He is loved and petted all day long. He is a very grounded dog, therapy quality.

I should say that I made it a practice not to tell other people how to live with their dogs. I don’t tell other people what to do I just share what it is that I do and would do. People can take it or leave it. Lots of people have done both.

Our culture is so phobic that millions of dog lovers will no longer take their dogs out for a ride in the summer for fear their windows will be smashed or they will get arrested if they stop to pick up their dry cleaning (this happened to a Saragota Springs woman who was taken off by the police in handcuffs recently because she left her dog in a car while while she went inside to pick up her laundry.

It was a sunny but cool day and in the time it took her to pay for her laundry, somebody called the police who came running.

This saddens me. There are certainly idiots in the world who leave their dogs in hot  cars but we can’t seem to find perspective in our country when it comes to phobias and fears.

I get attacked every time I take picture of a dog in my car on a sunny day. Don’t I know how dangerous it is to leave a dog in a car in the summer? Well, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. I drive my dogs around every place I go in all seasons, and never lost a one or had a sick dog while doing it.

I don’t care to have the government or the militia police monitoring me and my dogs. I have too many friends who are now afraid to take their dogs with them in cars from April to November. This, in case I need to remind anyone, is wrong.

That is also sad news for dogs, who benefit greatly from coming along with us as navigate our world, it socializes them and helps them interacts with human beings, stimulates them, it is a rich part of the human-animal experience.

They need to be in our lives, not imprisoned in  yards and basements every day of their lives, or driven into exile by animal rights zealots.

There are  risks, of course, to staying out of people’s business, and there are risks – and much damage – from intruding too much. Social media often triggers the cop in people – something in us loves warning people and telling them what do, especially when we can hide anonymously behind our computer screens.

I don’t think we can rationally ask the police to monitor our many millions of dogs in cars in summer and take responsibility for their welfare in a preventative, rather than reactive, way. If a dog dies in a car, the owner will often go to jail, as he or she should. But nobody should go to jail for leaving the dog in a car on a cool day while they rush into a dry cleaning store for a pick up. That is Orwellian, not American.

We cannot guarantee every one of the 72 million dogs in America a perfect life. There are bad people and some will do bad things.

The Saratoga Springs story is too much government for me, and I like government. Farmers can tell you what a nightmare the animal police are for them, they are afraid to let their cows and horses graze in sight of the a road. Does anyone think this makes animals safer?

My donkey Simon was nearly starved to death by a farmer who hid him in a horrid and small pen out of sight from the road. If an animal rehabilitator hadn’t been looking through the woods for a wounded hawk with her binoculars, Simon would have died.

I believe I ought to mind my own business unless there is a very serious and compelling reason not to do so – as in a child being abused  or an elderly couple going hungry or an animal starving or lying injured in the road.

Otherwise, I don’t want to be an animal cop any more than I wish to be a real one.

To me, Ridley is a very lucky dog. He has the life. I stuck my head into the store on the way by and told Ridley’s human: “hey, beautiful dog out there, congratulations on taking care of him so wonderfully.”

He seemed grateful.

Perhaps if we’re going to have animal militias,  there should be encouragement militias looking for dogs that are well treated and praising their good owners. There are an awful lot of them, even though you will never see one on the news.