Dog owners who allow their dogs off leash or who have no control over their leashed dog are a pet peeve of mine. Of course, pun intended. Last week, I was on a walk in my neighborhood by myself. Some dog walkers an awareness that they are in a public space and not everyone enjoys dogs. These people will take their dogs to an opposite sidewalk or walk into the street when they see me. The woman I encountered last week was not one of these people. She was not walking her dog so much as her small white dog was walking her right down the middle of the sidewalk. Still, for some reason, I thought that maybe this person would move herself and her dog to the side as I approached. But of course she didn’t. She just let her dog do what her dog wanted to do and started to insist to me “He’s friendly! He won’t hurt to you!” Clearly, what she failed to see wasn’t that I was afraid the dog would hurt me but that the dog was right in the path of where I was attempting to walk. Instead of having an encounter with her dog, I walked on to next to the sidewalk over the tree root terrain. She seemed genuinely disappointed that I didn’t what? Stop to pet her dog? Just keep barreling up the sidewalk? What I did do was ignore the woman and the dog. Some people don’t like to be ignored or so I understand.
In any case, like, I said, for the most part most owners seem to exhibit more awareness than this woman does but I was still wary when I saw a dog off leash on my walk this morning. His owner was a few paces behind him. They both looked familiar but I’m pretty sure that on previous encounters, the dog was on a leash which was now casually tossed over the man’s shoulder.
As I did before, I just kept walking. If a dog is off leash and doesn’t approach me, I don’t really have a problem with it. I am, after all, a dog owner myself. But I will quietly judge the dog walker and I definitely won’t be friendly.
Here’s the thing about this dog that I encountered this morning: he’s a bull dog. Bull dogs are a strange mix of intimidating and comic. They look broad and strong like a boxer (the athlete, not the breed) but also like Winston Churchill. So when this dog came walking towards me, all jowls and jaunty stoutness, and then turned his head to give me a quick sniff, I honestly couldn’t contain my laughter. Bulldogs are just so ridiculous.
I glanced up at the owner and it was clear he’d been clocking this interaction and my reaction. Clearly, he knew that his dog is ridiculous. He had a big smile on his face which, in turn, broadened my smile even more so that we were two people, vaguely familiar to one another, having a moment.
Rhena Writes 