As a (new) dog owner, I am baffled at the idiots one meets who do stupid things.
Firstly, Sasha isn’t huge, but she’s very bouncy (or has the ability to be so) and so one of the things I’ve been working on from day one is Not Jumping Up.
Not Jumping Up means that she gets lots of strokes and affection. Jumping up instigates me entirely ignoring her. This is working, and she will now come and sit quietly with her back to me when she wants affection.
However PEOPLE are irritating. I always take her into any pub and restaurant that will allow dogs in, because she must socialise and she learns nothing sitting in a car, and because she’s so gorgeous people always want to say hello to her. But! The number of morons who – upon being told by me that “I’m encouraging her to keep her feet on the floor so if you’ll just stroke her when she’s down.” say “Oh, I don’t mind, I love bouncy dogs” drive me bloody mad. They might not mind it, but I bet they’d complain if she knocked over their granny or their toddler when out walking.
Then yesterday we were out, and we’d already had one idiot who “didn’t mind” (grrrr) and then some bloody loony attached himself to me and started telling me his life story and I was relieved when the lunch came and I could turn my back on him.
However! I suddenly noticed that Sasha was eating something and turned to find him feeding her crisps! Not only that he was in the process of opening a full bag of ready salted crisps and putting them ALL down on the floor for her!! I pulled her away and said “No, I’m sorry, she’s not allowed to eat that—one or two, but not a whole packet!” He seemed quite offended but tough titty! On further conversation (he really would not go away) he turned out (unsurprisingly) to be the kind of person who puts the plates down for the dogs after a meal so they can clear up all the waste.
I would NEVER NEVER NEVER feed a dog without asking the permission of the owner (what about if she had a salt problem or something?) let alone feeding a dog an entire packet of crisps behind the owner’s back.
words fail me.
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Date: 2011-11-25 12:36 am (UTC)Some people are so thoughtless. As a dog owner with my baby's health at the forefront of my mind, I can really relate to your frustration.