Tuesday, October 2, 2007

When Good Dog Owners Go Bad

Ok there are two types of Dog Owners. The good and the bad. The good dog owners treat their dog like a pet. They have a tremendous love and relationship with their dog, they buy it toys, food, take it for walks and generally keep it as a secondary aspect of their lives. Then, there are the bad dog owners. These are the types of people who take their dog everywhere and treat their dog as if it's a child of their own flesh and blood. I have a growing disdain for these type of dog owners.
This all started a few years ago when I went to go visit my friend in upstate, NY. Based on his complaining that he's always coming down to see me and his other friends but nobody ever making the trip up to visit him, I felt him worthy enough to prove my respect and make the two hour trip upstate. He greeted me at the door with a warm hug and proceeded to give me a tour of his house. Everything was nice and going smoothly until he took me out back to meet what I quickly realized was the epicenter of his life. His two fucking dogs. He made me hug them in that, "Say hi Eric, shake their hand, hug them" type way (insert eye roll, eye roll, eye roll, sigh and they have bad breath.) Yeah, I get it dude, they're dogs. I've seen them before. No, that wasn't enough. I then had to watch them do all their tricks (pretending to be impressed) and afterward, personally feed them treats from my hand. I felt strange being asked to do all this ecspecially while my friend smiled in glee with a crazed look of satisfaction in his eye. Clearly these dogs were more than just pets. We went inside and I asked my friend what he had in store for us during the weekend. Kid you not, the whole weekend revolved around his dogs. "Well, I was thinking we could go to the downtown area and bring the dogs for a walk and then maybe hit this nice park where we can throw a frisbee around. You should see them catch a frisbee." I would have loved if he were being slightly sarcastic. But he wasn't. He was completely serious. And these dogs weren't puppies. They were full grown dogs and they certainly did not need the constant attention. However, I figured it is my friend's weekend I'll let him have his way. By Saturday evening, after spending Friday and all day Saturday with the dogs I decided to pipe up and say casually, "you know, friend, I came up here to hang with you, not your dogs." He looked at me with a stare that both displayed "how dare you say that to me" and "whhhaaaat?" As if he was either deeply offended or completely ignorant to the fact that his dogs had commanded the center of attention for the weekend. With that said Sunday was pretty much dog free with the exception of a 45minute walk with them around the neighborhood but regardless I was already too resentful to enjoy myself. By Sunday late afternoon it was time to head back home. As I pulled out of the driveway my friend waved goodbye and stepped inside his house. The dogs remained outside in their pen and just before I made my exit out of upstate, NY I made sure to give both pups a good hard dirty look and a nice long extended middle finger.
So listen up dog owners. Your dog is a pet. Love it all you want but realize that it is not a child. Don't bring it inside someone's apartment, or party, or the office, or a cafe (unless it's a specifically dog-centric loving cafe or friend) and assume everyone is interested in meeting this pride and joy of your sad, self important, narcissistic life. And if I hear that you're going to be late or can't make a plan or can't meet up on certain night because you have to "go home to feed your dog" then you can kiss my fat cat loving ass and forget we ever had plans to begin with! Hummph!

6 comments:

Dennis said...

I'll never forget the day I saw a man carrying his dog in a baby harness. I wanted to go up to him and say, "I hate you," but I thought better of it because I knew I wouldn't be able to stop with one phrase.

CinJen said...

so...um.....you didn't have fun that weekend?

:-)

dpaste said...

So it's OK that I named my cat as beneficiary on my life insurance?

Anonymous said...

Of the two typse of dog owners, wich one does Michael Vick fall under?

Unknown said...

Zoe misses you.

Anonymous said...

Dude! It's not the animals fault!