Look, I’m glad for you if a pet dog makes you happy. God bless if your computer wallpaper with pit bull photos in little digitally-edited Santa hats cheers you up. Good for you if owning a dog is what gets you up in the morning, but why must this societal attitude prevail that if you don’t like dogs or aren’t particularly swooning over every cute puppy photo or doggie adoption story you’ve got no soul? No, I’m not a heartless monster just because I asked you to pull your dog off me on Spring Garden Road yesterday, man. It’s just that not even five minutes ago your beloved Fido was licking its own crotch and then tried to lick my hands—excuse me if I find that rather unappealing. No, my well-meaning colleague, I don’t want your dog to eat off my plate when we have dinner tomorrow evening, nor do I want to help you start an awareness webpage because you want more research done into dogs suffering from PTSD. We don’t even give our country’s human veterans or victims of sexual assault the same level of attention as we do to “traumatized” animals, so why would I care if your “fur-baby” is scared of thunderstorms and you think it needs Prozac? Not everybody is as obsessed with dogs as others, and no, there’s nothing wrong with not caring about dogs. That stunned face I get from people when I say “please pull your dog off me before I press charges,” is both odd and rather frustrating. Of course it’s not the dog’s fault that it just got fur and slobber all over some stranger’s clothes. It must be the random stranger’s fault for not gushing over how cute it is and just accepting it as if it’s okay.—Bone to pick
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2018.
The dog people are an interesting bunch.
Normally I would say they are just a pack of idiot moron fools, comparable easily to people who drive while texting. They know what they’re doing is completely outrageous, but like children the more you tell them to stop, the worse the behaviour gets.
That would be easy to believe given the state of society.
The only thing that perplexes me is the fact that I know people who were once upon a time perfectly sane, respectful, reasonable people. But then along comes the godamn dog, and all that rapidly goes straight down the toilet and I have absolutely no idea why. I really don’t.
I feel your pain, but trying to make the dog people acknowledge or understand that their behaviour is unacceptable is like trying to talk to someone about all the reasons why they shouldn’t text and drive – it seems to be utterly futile.
Totally get what you’re saying. I love all critters but some dog owners are obsessive as fuck. It’s ‘love me, love ma dog’. Seems to me that controlling people like dogs while those who are more laid back prefer cats. Easy to see why. Dogs hang on your every word, always looking for direction while cats have a much more lovable ‘fuck you’ attitude. My biggest bugaboo is when I go for a brisk walk and some dip and their dog come up to me – I don’t want to pat your furbaby or socialize so don’t give me the fucking stink-eye when I see you coming & cross the street.
Puh-lease. And I’m supposed to just love everyone’s sticky, stinky human babies.
@Crys Thili exactly. You shouldn’t be expected to love something just because societal culture says you should. Now, I don’t think it’s OK at all to go out of your way to be cruel to parents with babies, or to hurt babies on purpose (or dogs), but if you find babies annoying or a bit gross, whose right is it to impose them on you? And the same applies to dogs and other pets. If a person doesn’t like dogs and doesn’t want to be around them, don’t be rude to them. Respect their personal space. I wouldn’t place a baby in the lap of some stranger who may have a problem with kids. I wouldn’t send somebody a bunch of photos and videos of my kids if they weren’t interested. I wouldn’t think that a person is the spawn of Satan just for not really having much of an interest or fondness for kids. And pets are any different, because…? The only argument to be made for being more accepting of human babies is that unlike dogs, babies are human beings who will grow out of gross diapers and snot eventually, god-willing. A dog is always going to be this filthy creature that drinks from toilet bowls, sniffs its own behind and humps legs. It’s actually more acceptable for some reason to force your dog onto other people than it is to force your kids on them. Nobody cares if you say you’re not really into children, or horses or monkeys or rabbits or pigs. And hating cats is even seen as humorous at times (we’ve all seen those memes comparing cats to psychopaths and demons). But say you hate dogs or even that you’re not really a dog person, and everybody stares at you like you have two heads.
TLDR
The stunned face when you tell people you will press charges for their dog interacting with you… The stunned face is because you’re being an asshole.
Completely agree with the obsession with dogs being a little much and owners should maintain control over their animals as many people are afraid of dogs, but if you’re interacting with people that way I imagine that it’s less a surprise around your disinterest in their dog and more a surprise that you would be an outright dick.
What makes you think you’re more important than a dog?
@superstar85ca When a dog finds a cure for a terminal illness, invests on the NYSE, builds a skyscraper or even learns how to pick up its own mess without a guy with a scooper having to come along and do it, then I’ll wonder about intrinsic importance. BTW, love the profile pic, is that Dorothy from The Golden Girls?