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re: dog people

Also, this will be a departure from my typical blog post. these thoughts were bouncing around in my head all day at work, so I need to put them down before I can move on. thank you for understanding.

ok, to start I want to say that I agree with everything the original poster stated about dog people. I am one of the aforementioned midwestern dog people. i have two dogs that are on the larger scale, i baby talk them behind closed doors, and they join me on the couch. however, I wanted to join in with the original writer and commiserate with them on some gripes about dog owners. I do not invite people to my house. This is not to be antisocial or because I do not want to have people over. rather it is out of respect for other people. my space is small, and inevitably, smells like dogs. I vacuum regularly, do laundry, try to burn candles, keep windows open weather permitting; still, I know that my dogs simply existing in the space gives it the aroma of pooches. I'm fine with that, but I don't want to subject that to other people. (immediate family excluded, they know what they're getting into) The original post mentioned a phrase that is uttered by dog owners across the globe or at least the midwest that gets under my skin. "don't worry, they're friendly!" I understand the sentiment, they're trying to put someone at ease as a (possibly barking) beast charges toward them. however, I am met with this most often when I'm either out walking my own dogs, or on a walk alone. you might be wondering why this bothers me. after all, I provided an understanding for the why it is being said in the first place. well, the missing context is that this comes from people who do not leash their dogs. which angers me. I'm very happy that your dog is friendly, that doesn't mean that mine are. (they are, they're sweet babies, but dogs are fickle when meeting other dogs). no amount of proper socialization or training can fully ensure how your dog is going to react to other dogs. if the dog that is not leashed approaches one of my dogs and tries to mount them, my dog might, understandably, react in an unkind way. I get it, we live in a rural part of the United States and you think that entitles you to just let your dog run off leash wherever, including on public trails etc. but it's irresponsible to your dog, and unsafe. I have had so many situations where I'm out walking one of my dogs, and some other strange dog comes running from their unfenced yard, all while the owner is repeatedly yelling at their dog to come back. I pray they don't get hit or hurt in anyway because you felt that keeping them safe wasn't important enough.

even without my dogs, I've been out walking in state parks with my camera and come across unleashed dogs. last fall I was out taking pictures and two off leash German Shepards came charging at me. they were admittedly friendly, but I just can't imagine letting my dogs out of my site in a big forested area. god knows what they might try to eat, or chase, or fight with.

this is becoming longer than I had intended, but I really didn't have an exact plan for the post either. the original post just really made me think about stuff that bothers me about "dog people", despite being one myself. I want to thank the original poster for their post. I didn't want to call them out specifically, or drop their name because it felt unnecessary. It also didn't want to send a wall of text to their email or do the same to their guestbook.

anyway, uh, thanks for reading.

xoxo - nik