One day after school, I was going to go for a jog with my new third-grade buddy Jeff Hartwick.

We planned to run about 2 and a half miles. It was a course that started at my house just below the Mountain Con Mine, and we would run over by the Kennedy Elementary School and back.

I had run the course with my mom before, but never by myself or with a friend.

We jogged from the Corner of Buffalo Street and Main Street to the corner of Buffalo and Montana Street. After that jaunt of a quarter of a mile or so, we realized our run was over because we couldn’t figure out a way to go.

“We can’t go that way,” Jeff said, pointing to the south.

If we went that way, there were a couple of older kids who might beat us up for treading on their turf. This was probably a paranoid thought, but we both believed that we would be risking our lives if we continued in that direction.

“Well, we can’t go up there,” I said. “There are a couple of mean dogs that will tear us apart.”

That thought was not so irrational. This was the fall of 1983, and the Butte Hill was Dog Heaven.

Everyone had a dog, and nobody believed in leash laws. We didn’t even believe in fences with closed gates.

Getting a dog in Butte back then meant that the whole neighborhood got a dog. It meant the people walking by your house got a dog to greet them — or to tell them to take a different route.

My family was as guilty as anyone. We had a little free-ranging dog who was hit by a car and killed in October of my first-grade year. The next May, we got a German Shephard/Huskey cross from the pound.

Even though she was female, we named her “Butch” because she reminded my dad of his old dog by the same name. She was the best dog, and she was very protective of her family.

Butch used to walk me to school. That ended the worry I had about bullies or other dogs.

Then, I trusted her to find her way home, where she would await my return. After that, she would accompany me just about everywhere I went — but for some reason she wasn’t with Jeff and me that day.

On the way home from school, I was on my own. I got out an hour before my older brother, so I didn’t have anyone to look out for me.

Usually there was a group of kids who walked with me at least a little bit of the way, but they were no protection against dogs and bullies.

Some of them were even bullies themselves.

One time as I walked home from the Blaine School alone, I had an aggressive Dobermann Pincher come at me. As I walked across the empty field on Wells Street, heading toward the Centerville skating rink, the dog kept biting my arms. He tore a couple of holes in my hand-me-down winter coat.

He wasn’t trying to kill me, though I thought he might be at the time. He was probably trying to play, but I was scared to death until a man came running out of his house to chase the dog away from me.

I couldn’t even say “thank you” to the man. I just ran home as fast as I could.

After that, the only thing I feared more than that Dobermann was the older boy whose family owned the Dobermann. I figured I at least had a chance to reason with dog.

Plus, it is no coincidence that the mean dog had a mean owner. I will always believe the old saying that there is no such thing as a bad dog. There are only bad dog owners.

Yes, we used to have a real dog problem in Butte. One ornery dog would hold an entire neighborhood hostage.

I don’t look back on those days as being bad, though. Actually, I kind of liked that so many people had dogs that they took care of. It was easier to take care of them that way, too. You could go on vacation, and your neighbors would look after your dog — even if you never told your neighbors you were going on vacation.

That problem lasted into the 21st Century before the county cracked down. For the last 20 years or so, you could go for a jog around uptown Butte without worrying about being attacked by a dog. For the most part.

The Butte Hill might still resemble Dog Heaven, but most of those dogs are confined to their yards.

It is starting to seem a bit like old times in Butte, though. The days of dogs with a bad disposition making some residents fearful when on their evening strolls seemed to have returned.

That is due largely to a couple of dogs who have been threatening people who walk on the walking trail through the old Con Mine yard up to the Granite Mountain Memorial. The dogs show their teeth, and there have been Facebook reports that they have bitten people.

My dad has had a few run ins with these dogs, who showed their teeth while convincing him to walk a different direction from his preferred daily routine.

He has called animal control multiple times. The last time he called, one officer told him that he could not do much about it. He said he issued the dog owners tickets, but nothing much more came of it.

Then he told my dad that those dogs are actually kind of scaredy cats. He advised my dad to pretend like he is going to go after the dogs. Then, they would run away.

That might have been the worst advice I have ever heard.

A woman posted on Facebook this weekend that she was attacked by those same dogs on the walking trail. The next day, another woman said she, too, was attacked by the same dogs.

However, upon further investigation, I believe the second woman was attacked by two different dogs who are also often out of their yard.

Yes, it seems like we might have a bit of a dog problem in Butte again. Actually, it is more of a people problem, and it goes well beyond the Butte Hill.

That problem should be relatively easy to solve, however. All we need is a little accountability.

The late Jeff Gibson was the longtime opinion editor and columnist at The Montana Standard. Back in the late 1990s, he offered a great solution to the dog problem.

Jeff said we should simply charge the owner with the act the dog was accused of committing. Notice I said “accused.” Even dogs should be afforded due process.

If a dog bites you, then the owners of the dog should be charged with biting you. If your dog barks all night long, you should be charged as if you stood out in your yard and yelled “hey, hey, hey” all night long.

If your dog poops in a neighbor’s yard, well, you get the point.

As Jeff laid it out, it is pretty simple. If your dog does the crime, you do the time. That would help some of these irresponsible dog owners learn some responsibility in a hurry, and dogs could prove once and for all that they really are not the problem at all.

It’s a people problem, and we must deal with these people.

Then those good citizens walking the streets and trails would no longer feel the way Jeff and I felt on the corner of Montana and Buffalo back in the third grade.

— Bill Foley, who would take a bullet for his dogs, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.