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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

To pet or not to pet


Just imagine: you're standing in line for coffee, and you hear an odd rustling and clanking noise behind you.  You turn, and upon seeing a few-months-old puppy on a leash, you

a) immediately reach down to scratch the dog's head, while also cooing at it about how cute it is
b) rationally turn to the dog's owner and ask permission to pet the dog

And the answer is.... A!  

This is something I've wanted to get off my chest for a while, and has been slowly eating away at my nerves: people lunge to pet my five-month-old puppy Omaha without asking me first, sometimes without even acknowledging my presence.  Not just once.  Not even once every few weeks.  It happens every. single. day.  I simply just do not understand why people think it's okay to touch someone's pet without the owner's permission first.  Especially since Omaha is a service dog!  Does this baffle you too?

I am extremely, extremely tempted to start petting the person who touches Omaha without my permission and say something like, "Aww, you're just so cute, aren't you!" in a singsong voice.  In fact I may or may not have been day dreaming about this happening all day....

For those of you with dogs, does this happen to you as well?  Does the age of your dog play a role in how often people ask to pet him/her? xx

1 comment:

  1. Since our dog, Winston, was about 8 months old, he hasn't been a fan of strangers. He barks and growls at them if they come too close to us. Because of this, we usually muzzle him when we take him out. Safer for him that way, really.
    You'd think a muzzle on a dog would be enough to deter people from lunging at him. Nope, it doesn't work. There have been multiple times where people ask why he's muzzled while in the process of bending down at him, and just before he lunges. Then somehow it's OUR fault that he scared them.
    I tell people to eff off when this happens. And sometimes, I jokingly say KILL to Winston, and that always gets him wound up. (We use the word KILL to indicate playtime with his toys. NOT to attack or anything like that)
    Overall, though, people are ding dongs when it comes to dogs.

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