Summertime and the living is definitely not easy

OPINION: It's the season of porkies, when people tell outrageous fibs about how wonderful summer used to be in the mythical Kiwiland when they were kids, and try to make us believe them.

Fact: summer is a mixed bag of fine days and floods, and needing warm pullovers more often than anyone admits. Fib: summer is endless blue skies and icecreams at the beach. What - with sand blown into them?

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While Rosemary McLeod talks about how she "doesn't buy the Kiwi camping holiday for a minute," my comment at the bottom of her online column is below.

"The ideal camping is FREE camping because you can then bring your dog.

This country is so anti-dog and now that Christchurch has been amalgamated with Banks Peninsula, the chch city rules towards dogs apply.

What does this mean? It means that in the middle of nowhere, on the beach, you can't bring your dog on a holiday camping. Okains Bay... huge place down a valley with nothing around except for a few houses, and a NO DOGS SIGN on the BEACH rigidly enforced, let alone near the CAMPGROUND ground.

It makes my blood boil how the kiwi holiday is now turning into a stay-at-home holiday because a lot of us consider our pets part of our family.

At the Companion Animal Conference in Auckland (2009), The Hon. Rodney Hide (Minister for local government) understood the importance that our dogs have in our lives and promoted a wholesale review of NZ's 'dog laws' and an earnest commitment to funding research into valuing and managing our companion animals. "