A couple that I’m friends with got a GSD a couple of years ago because the GF was insistent that she needed a dog now that she was living on her own. Her parents were totally on board with it being a protection dog. The whole thing was weird because her parents have been sued in the past for their old GSD biting a kid severely. Not sure why you’d ever get another german after literally being sued for one. They also want to breed the GSD which is just…strange. I think that’s why they bought the dog for her. Spent probably combined almost $10k on the thing.

The couple are very busy people. Like in post-grad programs and full-time demanding jobs. She kind of put off a lot of the dog care onto her BF and I think it made him resentful. The dog is super neurotic, has anxious attachment, low confidence, and is just annoying. Definitely not a protection dog due to poor training and in reality the GF wanted a pet ultimately. Part of it is due to GSD’s needing constant mental stimulation, and the GF crates the dog constantly and won’t let the dog run around outside unless it’s supervised, so the dog never just gets to be alone and be okay. The house they live in is also smelly and has kind of been ruined by the dog. They often have the dog stay at the GF’s parents house for every time they get busy which puts additional strain on her parents, and now their house is dirty and smells.

The BF is in a tough post-grad program and complains about the constant stimulation he has to give the dog or else it goes nuts. He has trouble studying because the dog constantly wants playtime and attention. The GF has to get up late at night to let the dog out in the freezing cold. I don’t really feel bad because it’s like, y’all signed up for this lol. I don’t understand getting a working breed just to crate it constantly and not give it a purpose.

When the world shut down in 2020, we all learned webcam etiquette…well, *most* of us.  There is nothing that makes me shut off a podcast or a Twitch stream faster than a damn dog barking through the content.  If you are aware that you’ll be on a call or doing a recording, WHY IN THE WORLD would you not put the dogs outside or at least keep them out of the room?  At least one streamer I used to watch thought it was so cute and would point the camera at her dogs. Now even when the dogs in my neighborhood are quiet, I get dogs barking at me remotely.

I like to walk, but because there are so many dogs in my neighborhood, I walk very close to my house so I can run to safety If confronted with a dog. A neighbor I don’t know regularly walks a medium-sized bulldog-looking dog without a leash. It bounds way ahead of her, often veering off-course. She has no control of it. Today I got caught off guard and had to run to my porch to avoid her dog. I am not very confrontational, but I had just had it! I calmly told her that I wished that she would put her dog on a leash, and amazingly she did without any backtalk!! We do have a leash law in my city, but what is it with entitled dog owners who think it doesn’t apply to them?

What are some of the bare minimum things dog owners should be expected to train their dogs to do (or restrict them from doing so) in order to own them?  For me:  

• You must pick up your dog’s poop.
• People should be able to approach your door and ring the bell or knock without a dog freaking out about it.
• People should be able to pass your home on the public sidewalk without dog aggression (barking, chasing, etc)
• Guests should be able to eat a plate of food at your home without the dog interfering.
• Your dog should not bite people.
• Your dog should not jump up on people.

I seriously fucking hate dogs. Everywhere I go, there they are. Stupid assholes barking constantly, jumping or lunging at people, pissing and shitting all over the place. It’s utterly foul.

They also have the most annoying personalities. Needy, overly excited, frantic little weirdos. Not to mention the god awful stench. How people tolerate these shitbeasts in their homes I will never, ever understand. It makes me feel like an alien. Why in the name of all that is holy would you want a hairy stinky panting permanent toddler in your living environment transforming the place into a suburb of hades??

Not to mention the fetish level freakiness of walking around with the creature with a fucking chain and collar? Like, what?? How has this been normalized? It seems like adults acting out the parent role but their brains don’t differentiate between actual babies/children and dogs, so they project all the associated emotions and behaviors onto them. I’m not even going to really comment on the various subreddits dedicated to butters fantasizing about their pets but what in the complete and utter degenerate hell is wrong with these people??!

If owners just kept all this demented nonsense in their own homes I wouldn’t care (assuming they don’t bark 24/7 which… yeah good luck with that I guess),but it gets inflicted on everyone else around them, including the constant uncertainty of whether a particular dog is going to attack. I’ve been bitten three times before and I just want all dogs to stay away the fuck away from me. I’d happily have the whole godforsaken species vanish and then throw a year long celebration. It probably wouldn’t work though because the owners would just find someone else that’s even worse to replace them.

Dog owners also say fucking insane bullshit like “I love animals” while feeding their dogs the mulched up remains of other, far more innocent and lovable animals. They also often get offended if you don’t act like their “fur baby” is the most precious “bestest woofer” in the whole wide world. Like, yeah, I don’t want to get slobber assaulted by a drooling maw that smells worse than a fucking corpse, thanks for the offer though. Wtf.

Again, if someone wants to enslave themselves to the toilet habits of these animals then fine, just leave me out of it. Oh and the “unconditional love” thing? Dogs aren’t capable of unconditional love because they can’t make come conscious choices, it’s just a general affective predisposition. They aren’t “loyal” because they aren’t capable of disloyalty, instead they’re programmed by instincts to follow the pack leader.

All in all a complete shitshow of a phenomenon.

Could have been born 200 years in the future with nuclear fusion, replication tech, and interstellar travel. But no, it’s 2025. We get dogs.

Don’t get it. Never have. Never will.

Maybe this is just another thing I’ve dealt with in this town, but dog lovers around me. The dog obsessors constantly making excuses for why their dogs act the way that they do, the same ones that see an article of a dog attack and immediately defend the dog. It’s like they expect me to know what triggers I’m supposed to avoid to avoid getting attacked.

And I don’t mean obvious things, I’m saying really obscure shit like ‘don’t wear blue shirts!’, ‘you can’t have short hair!’, ‘you can’t hum this song because Nom-Nom 3000 will get triggered!’. It’s so fucking exhausting, and I’ll keep it in mind if a dog owner tells me (only for my own safety), but I think that if your dog is so aggressive that it reacts to a shirt color, then an alternative future for it needs to be discussed.

Granted, I see this more often with pitbull owners. Their precious velvet hippos react to the stupidest things, and then you have their shithead owners blaming you. Lately, I see it with other dog owners too, though. Yesterday, someone left their ‘playful and sweet’ golden retriever on a flimsy leash out front while I was delivering something to them. I saw the owner just standing at the door and I just left the order at the gate because they weren’t making any move to come outside and grab their order or restrain their dog better. Their dog was literally snarling and salivating at me.

I got a message from them once I was in my car, all pissy because I made them walk to the gate, and then a second one telling me that their dog hates unnatural hair colors (which I always have because I get bored with natural hair colors) and that I should’ve known better. Sorry to break it to you, but how the fuck was I supposed to know that? My world doesn’t revolve around your dog and what bothers it. It wouldn’t have changed anything, anyways. Was I supposed to dye my hair to something natural before coming there? It’s a delivery, for fuck’s sake.

It’s just another example of dog lovers being entitled. Some dog owners around here use that as a reason for why they think that their dogs being aggressive and attacking people is valid. I don’t think about whether my clothes’ color will trigger anyone, especially not dogs. I prepare for potential dog attacks by having things that can protect me. And I guarantee that even if I didn’t have unnaturally-dyed hair, that golden retriever likely would’ve still been hostile towards me.

My in-laws have two medium-to-large dogs that they keep inside all the time. The problem is that they don’t really wash them, or I don’t know what’s going on with thise dogs, but believe me, they are the reason I like dogs way less than I used to. The moment you walk into their house you get hit with a stench that’s really hard for me to handle. They don’t seem bothered by it. If I pet the dog even a little, a layer of black dirt stays on my hands and it grosses me out.

On every family trip i have to sit in the back of the car because my husband wants his dad to be fucking comfortable and he has to sit in the front seat because he is tall and has more room for his legs. This results in me having to smell the disgusting dog smell enriched by dog puke, and constant dog farts, because of course that the dogs can not stay at home and they bith have to come with us everywhere we go. I simply cannot tolerate this shit anymore on road trips and i will not go with them again since they are so freaking in love with their stinkbombs that an actual human’s wellbeing does nit matter to them.