Dogs

Two interesting things happened in the park today. The park was quite busy with other dog walkers but we were all a fair distance from each other, I did notice however one woman looked at Bess a bit warily, and when we saw each other again, she stopped to talk. She straight out asked me whether Bess was aggressive. I was a bit taken aback and some people might think that was rude, but she’d asked me a straightforward question so I gave her a straightforward answer. No.

She seemed to sense that she’d been a little blunt (she wasn’t English and so may not have meant to sound so direct). At this point Bess decided to lean on her legs, wag her tail and demand to be stroked. The woman explained there was a group of young men that had been hanging out with “similar type dogs” and they’d been engaged in the sort of play that generally increases the levels of aggression in a dog and strengthens their jaws. I’d also seen them and had avoided them (I seem to recall that on one occasion I’d actually left the park and we continued our walk elsewhere). Whilst I don’t think they are training their animals to fight, they are clearly training them to make up for their own inadequacies such as small brains, small genitalia, parents that were related before marriage and heightened levels of aggression to make up for a complete lack of compassion and empathy for anyone or anything other than their own pointless lives.

We chatted for quite a while about Bess and Pluto and how, despite the awful start in life they both had had, they were fantastic pets. Not perfect – not by a country mile, but beautiful, loving and gentle. She seemed grateful that I had taken the time to talk and I was pleased that I put her right on her misguided belief that certain breeds (in this case Staffy’s) were inherently bad dogs. I’m not sure she was totally convinced but then it’s not my job to educate other dog owners that all dogs were created equal...

We then bumped into another walker and he started chatting to me as well! Unlike the woman (who’s dog, although not purebred, was purchased from a breeder), he also had a rescue – a beautiful white German Shepherd who seemed fairly bomb proof despite Bess getting over excited and barking right in his face! When the Shepherd was a puppy the owners threw him out of a moving car on the motorway. He broke a leg and dislocated a hip and it was a month before he was seen living by the side of the road and rescued.

We eventually carried on our walk but I was feeling very reflective. Humans consistently fuck up – sometimes through ignorance, other times through cruelty and sadism – and animals (and of course other humans) bear the brunt of this. If our dogs can forgive and forget we’re grateful but actually, if we’re really honest, we expect them to anyway because we don’t like dealing with the problems caused by others. And besides, shouldn’t these animals be grateful that they are no longer being brutalised? We’re the good guys; we’re the ones adopting the dogs no one else wants? That, apparently, makes us special.

But if dogs don’t manage to get over what was done to them, if there are problems, we blame them. In extreme case, we blame the entire breed. But what we don’t realise is that actually we’re fucking up all over again because our chronic lack of self awareness means that we continue to perpetuate the problems that allow dogs to be mistreated and used as accessories. We’ll take the side of the humans, even when those humans do bad things, because dogs are lesser creatures, they’re not human and we are most definitely the pack leader – in name if not in deed.

There should be quite simply better dog laws in this country. If a dog is suspected of being toughened up for fighting (even if not professional fighting), it should be taken and the owner banned from keeping pets for life. There should be huge fines, which if cannot be paid, immediately revert to a community sentence. No extra paperwork, no long delays: can you pay this fine? No. Then you have a 100 hour community sentence effective immediately.

There should be more dog wardens and a freephone number displayed where people walk their dogs which will get you through to a local dog warden who can immediately respond to incidents and problem behaviour. We should also be looking at the conditions in society that cause people to think they need aggressive, volatile dogs. Because believe me, if someone is deliberately cruel to their dog, or uses it for fighting, that won’t be the only thing they’re doing wrong. Scratch the surface and I guarantee you’ll find other crimes including, often, domestic violence...

People often say to my partner and me how lucky Pluto and Bess are that we adopted them and care for them so well. I have to say, we’re also the lucky ones that they have such beautiful natures and don’t seem to hold us responsible for the terrible things that have been done to them. I’m honestly not sure I could be so forgiving.

Stereotype?

Here’s an interesting thought, if we have any honesty and self-awareness we will admit to stereotyping people. We don’t like it, but we do it. But how do we feel when people do it to us?

Today I was walking Pluto and Bess. We virtually had the park to ourselves and the dogs were full of beans; racing around, jumping on each other, barking and generally having an absolute ball. I saw a couple of people the other side of the park and I put myself in their shoes – two strong, ‘tough’ looking dogs (Rotty/Lab x and Staffy/Mastiff x), roaring around, barking and growling. I suddenly looked exactly like one of those people I despise – using strong dogs to make myself look bigger! I had become a stereotype!

Luckily we are known at our local park and there are a lot of knowledgeable dog owners that know that barking and growling in play is like kids shouting when they play – harmless. It is after all how dogs communicate. But if you didn’t know that, if you assumed all barking was bad and all growling was a precursor to an attack you might well have been wary of us. People also know how I feel about the scum that brutalise their animals to make themselves seem hard, or that train their dogs to fight, but still – how strange, that if you knew nothing about me and our beloved P & B you might think I was a hard nut with two scary looking beasts! Ironic then that they and I much prefer a hug to a fight any day of the week.

Maybe I should buy them pink jackets?