Why I Like Dogs Better Than Most People
Our little Penny, all comfy in bed.
It’s going to be a ranty day.
We have a dog, now. Which means we end up talking to a lot of dog owners, and there are a LOT of dog owners in our apartment complex. Fortunately for all of us, there are about 20 miles of walking and biking trails just behind the complex. Since none of us have yards, obviously, it’s good that we can easily get our dogs out and walking. But that also means that, at any given time, you’ll probably encounter about five different dogs in a 20-minute walk.
There is dog walking etiquette. When you first get a dog, it doesn’t take very long to figure that out. You just have to follow a few basic rules:
- Not everyone loves dogs. (This one is true even if someone is walking a dog.)
- No one loves your dog as much as you do.
- Not every dog loves dogs.
- When your dog tries to say “hi” to another dog, you reassure the other dog owner that your dog is friendly.
- If your dog is not friendly, shorten his or her leash and keep walking. Similarly, if you see someone shorten a dog’s leash and keep walking, you should keep walking, too.
Simple.
Now, I know not everyone is adept at reading body language, but I don’t know how much of this is nonverbal. If someone is tearing their dog away from your dog, that seems like a good cue to keep moving, no?
Here’s the thing. I love Penny more than I ever thought I could love a dog. But Penny is a 30-pound Terrier mix. I love most other dogs, as well, and so does Penny, but we both have the same quirk: We are not comfortable around big dogs. I’m not talking lab- or retriever-size big. I’m talking dogs that weigh more than I do. Dogs with heads bigger than Penny’s entire body. She’ll say hi to them, then she realizes how big they are, and she jumps backwards like she just saw a ghost. Or a giant, which is actually more likely. We don’t hate them, not at all. My uncle and aunt just got a big Mastiff-Shepard mix, and we’d be fine around him, for sure; we just take a while to warm up to them. And since my uncle and aunt are not jerk dog owners. They would understand and watch their dog and make sure everyone was OK before letting the dogs play or letting the big dog jump on me.
But there are lots of jerk dog owners out there.
And one of them is in our complex. And he owns a Great Dane.
A Great Dane. Source: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/greatdane.htm
Yea. A Great Dane.
Like I said, Penny and I would be fine with this behemoth given the proper time and space to get acquainted. A 30-minute walk, just outside our building, however, is not the time nor the place. So, about a yard away from these two, I notice they’re just sort of standing in our path – something most dog owners do when they know their dog wants to say “hi” to Penny. Noticing this, I call out, “We’re not so comfortable with big dogs. Sorry!” We kept walking, since we were, you know, on the path and I’m not going to change my direction just because some guy is standing there with his dog.
(I don’t know why I felt the need to apologize for that, but I did. Maybe I wanted to let him know it wasn’t anything against him or his dog. Whatever, but as you will see, I should have been more firm.)
So this guy audibly scoffs at me and says: “Really?” in that tone like well that’s stupid. I shorten Penny’s leash to make a circle away from these two. And what does he do? He lets his dog’s leash out – which is incredibly long, by the way – and the dog gets right up to Penny and sniffs her.
Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!
So I just grip Penny’s leash tighter and try to move away and say, “Look, I said we are not comfortable with big dogs.” Meanwhile, Penny gets behind me and this dog is sort of following her around me, and I almost get tangled up in the leashes.
Luckily, I saw this coming (because I know my dog and I know how she is), so I was able to react quickly and tug Penny into a jog to get away before the leashes wrapped around me or, worse, the dogs. I can hear him snickering at us, but he leaves us alone and we keep walking.
The path we take is a loop. So we swing south-bound on the west side of the loop. And guess who is sitting on the west side of the loop, under a tree, when we get there?
You guessed it. Jerky McJerkface and Great Dane. And guess what Mr. McJerkface is doing? Quietly cackling and telling his dog, “Look. It’s the girls who are afraid of you.”
Ha. Ha. Ha.
So, since I can’t let this go without a little bit of analysis, I have to wonder: Did he not believe me because I am a young woman and I was walking my dog by myself? I can’t imagine that, if Tim were there, he would have questioned my assertion that we are not comfortable with big dogs. However, if he did question it, Tim would have given him a piece of his mind. And, since most of you know me, you know I might have, too, if it weren’t for Penny. Not that she would understand my string of curse words hurled at this guy, but I’m new to the dog thing, OK? And I don’t want her getting wrapped up or even more scared of this dog just so I school his owner.
Maybe reading gender into it is too much. Maybe it’s not. But I know that the next time I see this guy, I’ll just cross the street. And if he gives me a hard time, well, I’m not going to be afraid to give him a piece of my mind.
Hi Ashley – I know how you feel about big dogs! I had a ferocious beast of a dog chase me into traffic when I was 16, and I was hit by a car. While I’m glad it chose not to bite me, it scared me for years afterwards of other random attacks. My cousin Melanie was not so lucky when she was around the same age, and a neighbor’s Rottweiler came out of nowhere and tore a chunk out of her arm. In both situations, the big dogs were fully unprovoked.
These days, I’m only comfortable with big dogs if I know the owner, and know that it was raised on belly rubs and kisses as opposed to by some crazy douche who beat it into submission so he could look like the most masculine dude on the block. (A common problem in South Florida, where both of the aforementioned events took place.) I’m also 5’2″, so most big dogs are much larger than me and can knock me over, even if they’re being friendly.
This guy sounds awful, and I recommend giving him a piece of your mind next time!
@Stef –
I hear you. I weigh 120 pounds, and I’m pretty sure this dog is pushing 200. People tell me they’re just lovable and gentle giants and all that, and that might be true, but if someone doesn’t like big dogs, they don’t like big dogs! It’s nothing personal, and shoving your dog in their face definitely isn’t going to fix the problem!
Sorry you had terrible experiences with big dogs. 🙁 Personally, I only trust ANY dog if I know the owner, which has made for some very interesting walks because that means I don’t trust any dogs we encounter!
What kind of person does such a thing?
I have a dog, but I’m not a “dog person.” My husband is, but I just love MY dog. Big dogs especially make me nervous. I would’ve reacted the same way you did, Ashley. I’m sorry the poor dog’s owner was so disrespectful to you.
I’m with you. Sam is ok with bigger dogs but is obviously slightly less comfortable, so I usually tell owners that and they usually give him some space and let him initiate if he wants. This guy was a complete asshole. You are trying to be responsible, because even the nicest dog when feeling cornered or threatened or uncomfortable can nip just as a warning but accidentally cause an injury. They are just trying to claim their space and give a warning.
The more and more you encounter other dogs you also learn to read the dogs, which is often more reliable than the owners. My pet peeve is actually more often small dogs, like not penny sized but like chihuahuas – i mean tiny like if i stepped on it it would be good-bye doggie. So often owners dont discipline their tiny dogs because they are so small and have even seen some laugh when their dogs nip and bark at bigger dogs. There is one girl on our block who has a little fluffy white thing that is about 2 pounds and she lets it out in her front yard with no leash but it can fit through the fence and if it sees another dog down the block it just takes off right down the sidewalk and she is always laughing running after it but this little dog bites. It ran up to Sam before and started biting his feet and I pushed it away with my foot and she picked it up and I went off on her, yelling that if her little terror that she doesn’t teach or control did that to a different dog besides Sam and that dog bit back most likely her little bella would be dead and it would be completely her fault but some dog could be put down for that even though their own walked it on a leash and took every precaution and I called animal control and reported her so that it was on record that ehr dog bites and thats he lets it free just to protect any one else if that did happen in the future. A week later I saw her again and same thing happened but this time i blocked sam and just kept cutting it off with my foot and she was still laughing so I called animal control if front of her again and now she keeps it on a leash. There is also a couple witha chihuahua who I saw and it looked unfriendly base don doggie body language and they let it out a hugely long leash and laughed as it went right up to sam stood still and when sam bent down to sniff it nipped t his nose and again the couple was laughing, so I went into my tirade of if your dog isn’t friendly you are responsible for anything that it does or that happens to it because of it. Stupid people. There’s my tirade.
I hope you continue meeting awesome people who have awesome dogs and Penny makes some great friends because they are out there and stopping to say hello makes walks a lot of fun.
Oh Sara, I love you. I miss your rants! Good for you for calling animal control on those people!
Jerky McJerkface, that’s who. 🙁 People just don’t respect their dogs or other people sometimes, which is really sad.
Jake is now just about 9 months old and he’s over 90 lbs. The vet seems to think he’ll get to about 120 lbs. We live in the country so we don’t come upon too many other people when we walk him but I am certainly sensitive to people who we happen upon either walking or riding their bike. A mastiff is an imposing looking dog and I can see the trepidation in some people. I have trained Jake to step aside and sit patiently while the other people go by. This demonstrates to them that first, I have control of the dog and second, the dog is calm. Upon seeing this many people then ask if they can walk up and pet him. He likes that! But, Jake is still a puppy and sometime acts like it so we use caution to make sure he stays under control when around other people and dogs.
Hey Uncle Jeff! I kinda had a feeling you’d comment on this post. 🙂
I agree, if this guy demonstrated that he had control of his dog and that is dog was not mean rather than use his dog as a way to intimidate us, I’d be much more likely to let Penny stop and say hi. You are a good dog owner; this guy was just a jerk. Unfortunately, there are lots of jerks who own dogs. They don’t do their research or they don’t want to put any time into training or they only want a dog when it is convenient for them. We have people across the hall, too, who have a puggle that has serious separation anxiety, and they leave it ALL THE TIME. It just sits at the door and whines. So sad!