DOG PEOPLE

CAT PEOPLE always get a bad rap.  When you think of ‘cat people’ there is a connotation of an obsessive person with furniture shredded by claws, the house smelling of urine; carrying on a reclusive, unnatural relationship with a house full of felines.

Dog people, on the other hand, always get a pass. 

Don’t read me wrong, I don’t dislike dogs.   I feel about dogs the same way I feel about kids: You like them – You chose to have them – You put up with them – Don’t inflict them on me. 

Aah, there is the rub and there is my complaint. 

I live in a secluded, wooded area, but yesterday while mowing the lawn I stepped in dog shit.   I don’t own a dog, so why do I have to clean dog shit off my shoe?  

There is an ordinance in town that dog owners must remove dog droppings, but you still find occasional crap piles on the sidewalks - and even when dog owners pick up their dog poop the animals are still pissing in public places.

There is a small park in town where weekly music events take place during the summer, but you have to be careful where you sit because some dog owners will have left their pooch’s crap on the lawn.   There will always be two or three people who show up for the concerts with dog (s.) that will bark and try to cold nose everyone that walks near.  

The complaints continue:

My wife an I were sitting by the front window in a local coffee house when a woman with her dog on a leash stopped to chat with her friend on the sidewalk.   Totally oblivious to the surrounding she chatted while her pooch pissed on the sign advertising the sandwich and soup of the day.

Last year we went to a Chinese buffet and they seated us in a booth next to a woman that had two small dogs wearing orange jackets perched on the chair beside her.   The owner came and asked the woman to remove the dogs but she refused saying the dogs were handicap animals and are allowed, by law, in the restaurants.   Later she explained to a server that she takes the dogs around to nursing homes to cheer up the old people.  

And there is more:

People push their little rat dogs around Wal-Mart in shopping carts – they leave them in cars in parking lots with their windows open – they tie a red bandanna around their necks and let them run free on beaches and in parks – they show up for a visit and bring their dogs.

DOG PEOPLE are inconsiderate.   Dogs are naturally invasive and thoughtless dog owners readily inflict them on the public.   Why do dog owners feel they need to bring their pets down town with them?  Why do they think it is all right to take their dog into fairs and concerts and onto beaches; and even into restaurants and other stores?   It is bad enough that parents bring unruly kids with them into public places, but what is the need to drag along the dog? 

You love your dog and that is great.   You have chosen the companionship of a dog.   All I would ask is that you keep it home – and don’t inflict it on the public. 

the Ol’Buzzard