Look, love your pet as much as you like. Just don’t expect me to take to the furries you have seemingly adopted=own as family members. I don’t dislike animals, in fact if I wasn’t so allergic I’d probably at least pet a cat or a dog, a time or two. When I see them in somebody’s house I talk nice to the critters, be they hamster or pooch. I’m just not all that enthusiastic about the whole pet thing, sorry.
But you do you, that’s fine with me.
What isn’t fine with me is seeing all the dogs I do in retail spaces these days. Sorry, but keep your dog out of Barnes and Noble, my local Quick Check, the Stop & Shop (yes, all places I have seen folks bringing their dogs in the past two months) and certainly, out of the restaurant where I am eating. Sorry, but if you became so attached to your pooch during the pandemic, if you really can’t get out of the house without your cat clutched in your purse, if you really don’t feel complete unless your pet is by your side, in your lap, poking their head out of your laptop, don’t go out then.
I don’t need to share in your need/adoration/selfishness in an indoor space.
Outside, yeah have at it, although at least leash the critter, ok? Did I ever tell you about the time my girl and I were picnicking in Golden Gate Park (yes, I do get around further afield than New Jersey) and an unleashed dog, sauntering the green pathways of the park with his owner, scampered over to take half of my sandwich? I don’t blame the pooch, this was a dog, he’s going on instinct, my sammy looked yummy, why not go and grab it? And God knows, I’ll share a meal with any creature who might be hungry. But this intrusion was on the pet owner who didn’t have the smarts to leash her dog but did have the temerity (thank you Gary Gulman Bing Videos) to call over to us with a, “Oh, don’t worry, he’s harmless, he’s just saying hi.”
Um…
I found this article recently: Fake service dogs hurt credibility of real service dogs, harm users where people are actually going out and about with fake service dogs, a sure detriment to humans who actually need a service dog and the pet who is trained for that service. (And sorry, even here I have to call foul in some instances. I am not talking about blind folks or those with mobility problems; yes, in these cases I see the need for a cane, kindness from others, as well as service animals. It’s the preponderance of folks claiming they need emotional support animals that make me wonder…really, how weak are we getting?) But going out with a pet that you simply consider your service animal, when it is not actually trained to be one, simply because you think you need one, is a pure sign of selfishness, sorry.
At the top of this piece, you see a picture my girl took when she passed an animal clinic in NJ. At first, she thought it was advertising psycho-dog therapy (as if aqua and physio for animals aren’t suspect enough to me). But her reading the sign wrong speaks to what I truly believe so many would consider these days for our pets…that they could use some sort of mental or emotional therapy. Or speaks to what I have always suspected, that while dogs could very well be psycho just like us humans, really, we got them beat by a mile.
