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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27907 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 23, 2024

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Non-political topic—dog culture. For the holidays, I was in physical stores shopping. It amazed how many people brought their dogs. One had brought a big dog that when it went by someone the dog owner struggled to keep the dog from jumping on the other customer. Dogs were in the freaking grocery store.

To me, this is entirely unacceptable. Some people (yours truly) don’t much care for dogs as the barking can be disquieting. More to the point I was raised believing there was a time and place for everything. Stores were not dog places. Yet that has seemed to break down. My question is why.

Are dog people convinced that all humans love dogs (except for evil humans) and therefore there ought not be a problem? Do they simply not care about old norms?

Are dog people convinced that all humans love dogs (except for evil humans) and therefore there ought not be a problem?

I think people who don’t like dogs are neurotic and/or weird, and they tend to have personality traits that I find off-putting.

My question is why.

In general, it comes from a desire to give their dogs better lives. Going to the grocery store is more fun and fulfilling for a dog than being locked in crate.

I don’t support dogs in grocery stores in general, but only because most owners lack skill and judgment, not because of a categorical objection.

During holiday shopping, I dont care about your skill and judgement, the dog is a problem simply for taking up space.

Do you think you can compare utils between dogs and humans?

That is, while I’m against harming dogs (or animals) wantonly, I don’t really value animal flourishing per se. I certainly don’t value animals well-being if it comes at the cost of humans (even if it is a minor nuisance).

From my experience, the dog obsessed are the ones with weird personality traits (eg my sister in law had her husband take her out to a fancy Mother’s Day dinner when she got her first dog).

Yes, and probably at a higher exchange rate than most. But more importantly, I value my dog’s utils highly, and many other people feel the same.

Well if we are laying cards on the table perhaps I am neurotic but I find your stated preference (and that of other dog lovers) to be anti human (and in some situations narcissistic). I think we elevate love of dog to be unnatural.

I suppose trading human utils for dog utils is “anti-human” in some literal sense because dogs are not humans. This does not make it unnatural or wrong, however.

This idea that “1 util of annoyance for me is worth more than 1,000,000 utils of your dog’s happiness” is actually kind of what I find off-putting about dog haters. Not only I disagree on an object level, but it tends to reflect their general mindset towards life. If they can’t even put up with being greeted by a friendly dog, they are likely not going to be an easy person to be around.

Even being the type of person who is willing to claim with full confidence that a dog has zero intrinsic worth compared to himself, and is then willing to act on this belief, to me shows a very concerning arrogance and lack of empathy. I just don’t want people like that around me.

If they can’t even put up with being greeted by a friendly dog, they are likely not going to be an easy person to be around.

The irony is killing me.

  1. I’m a very easy person to be around. I just don’t like being barked at and jumped on.

  2. I find the mindset of dog lovers to be “dogs are better than people.” They freely make statements like that. I’ve asked a few and they routinely say they’d save their dogs over humans if given the choice. But if that isn’t unnatural enough it frequently is that they love their dogs so much but rather that they often are somewhat misanthropic.

  3. My view is that dogs (and other animals) should not be harmed or mishandled. At the same time, I don’t believe they are capable of eudaimonia. So I don’t care about trying to make them happier but I do believe in trying to relieve their pain.

I find the mindset of dog lovers to be “dogs are better than people.” They freely make statements like that

Are any of these people not redditors or redditor-adjacent?

Yeah! I meet them all the time.

I would suggest the other poster is implicitly acknowledging that sometimes what their dog likes is superior to any harm caused to a human.

More comments

How would you feel if a random mentally ill human who spends his time licking up his own vomit and sniffing random piles of feces came and licked you on the face as you walked by? Would reassurances by his family that he's "friendly" and "harmless" make any difference to your response?

While that story is weird, IME dog moms are basically normal women for whom being an actual mom is not an option at the moment, and they'll stop being that way after having a child.

I think for many of them being a mom could be achieved but-for a lot of individual choices that probably are misplaced

Yes, that’s what I mean.

This is one that bothers me. I'm allergic to dogs (not fatally, thankfully), but if a dog licks me or I pet one, I have a mild reaction. It's incredibly frustrating how prevalent dogs are in public spaces. This wouldn't be a problem if the dogs were well trained, but they are not.

Where is my tyranny of the minority when I need it?

Also people being overly dismissive of the dogphobic. I grew up with dogs and like dogs, but I've been to countries where the norm is sketchy unwashed street dogs and thus understand why somebody from one of those regions might not like to see random dogs popping into their personal space.

Are there any old norms you don't care about? Males wearing hats, females wearing hats and gloves? My grandmother had to wear a dress to go to the doctor. She thought there was a time and a place for everything, and pants and going into town just didn't mix.
Are you truly amazed that your pet peeve is not universally enforced?

  • -10

Dogs have the capacity for harm - peeing in what should be sanitary places to acquire food; biting; barking at certain ethnicities or races if not socialized properly; jumping/knocking people over. It's more so like "why do you have an issue with a bunch of people bringing in guns and handing them to their children while wandering around the store?" Some of the children, I assume, are well trained. Sooner or later, though, a gun's gonna get fired.

People don't train their dogs properly

I think there's a difference between 'I am scandalizing the public by not wearing a hat' and 'here is a random non-human lifeform'. I grew up with dogs, I like dogs and yet the amount of random overstepping by dog owners I see these days is insane. You're injecting a potentially-dangerous animal into random situations, causing a hygiene issue and some people are allowed to just not like dogs. Plus any leeway given on this issue will just automatically trickle down into the yappiest and pitbullest of varietals.

Live near a small (but pretentious) town in the Northeast USA. I tend to see dogs either inside hardware stores, or small cafes that explicitly advertise being dog-friendly. Granted, those and grocery stores (where I have yet to see a single dog) are about the only places I tend to shop these days, so it may not be a useful observation set.

I'm kinda curious where you live. Whether its rural, urban, or suburban. I'm in suburbs in Virginia, I've never seen a dog inside a grocery store.

I don't see them all that often in the local airports either. But one of my trips up to the northeast I was surprised at how many dogs were in the airport, had to be an average of 2 dogs a flight.

There are the neurotic dog owners that probably have awful reasons for bringing their dogs every where. The reasonable people I talk to seem to just take advantage of the fact that norms have broken down. If other people are bringing their dogs along, why should they hold the line when it would be convenient for them to bring their dogs as well?

I'm in northern VA too and I've seen dogs in my local Harris Teeter.

NJ but in nyc frequently. Dogs in grocery stores tend to be pocket pooches.

Is this not the real source of your gripes, then? This probably isn't a problem universally across America like some here seem to think.

It’s like the white person version of playing one’s music loudly on public transportation. It’s a flex, finding pleasure in imposing yourself upon others, enjoying the discomfort of others, and daring others for a confrontation.

YTA if you don’t want dog hair and slobber all over your groceries, dog hair in your restaurant food or the residuals of dog paw or asshole plopped on your seat or table. And fuck people with dog allergies. If your kid didn’t want to get mostly peacefully nannied by my emotional support pitbull while you two were shopping, maybe he or she shouldn’t have made a sudden noise or movement, or breathed.

Few things make me automatically despise a person more than seeing them with a dog donned in a “Emotional Support Animal” vest. Apparently, in the states, the ADA forbids public venues from asking for proof that a pet’s a service animal.

And I mildly but generally like dogs (as long as they’re quiet and not a pitbull; yes_chad.jpg: I’m a doggo racist). I can only imagine what’s it’s like for those who dislike dogs or have a phobia or allergy, encountering dogs left and right in public venues (and sometimes even on airplanes, although thankfully airlines have been trying to push back on that—hail corporate!).

Yes, you are the asshole for assuming the only reason people might take their dogs out is to enjoy imposing themselves on others. I'm not an asshole, so I assume they enjoy the companionship.

  • -14

I've had three dogs. Two were mixed breeds that were a bit highly strung(that's not disqualifying, with a strong owner in a house); they did not get taken out in public except to the park(and stayed under my direct control). One was the most laid back lab ever- she would occasionally go with me to places that were known as dog friendly, but even with her, I did not push the envelope.

Other dog owners should do what I did. Not push the envelope for whatever reason.

But when I was young, lots of people had dogs, but they left them home when they went shopping. Did so many people suddenly become so, I don't know, psychologically weaker such that they can't stand to spend a single minute away from their animal?

You seem really to like dogs. That’s nice. Bully for you. I’m serious. But people also may not like dogs. And it’s wild that dog people don’t seem to understand the negative feelings externalities.

I like dogs but I perfectly understand why people would not like dogs, and therefore my dogs remain in classically dog-appropriate spaces. Also insane when people try to equivocate this issue with children/babies when one is a stage of development that literally everybody went through.

Also our society should largely cater towards kids because without kids society collapses. Without dogs…

Yes, what a Kind and Empathetic person I'm sure you are. I didn't say it was the only reason. I imagine the Persons of Public Transport who selflessly share their music with the people around them also enjoy the companionship of their music on some level.

Honestly having run into some Persons of Public Transport who were cheerfully trying to get people to watch the youtube video or enjoy the music they were max-volume blasting I don't think they were even necessarily 'malicious'. Still doesn't stop it being annoying.

It’s like the white person version of playing one’s music loudly on public transportation. It’s a flex, finding pleasure in imposing yourself upon others, enjoying the discomfort of others, and daring others for a confrontation.

If anything, this argument makes me think differently about speakers-on-the-train guy. I had always assumed that it was a dominance display, but I suppose it entirely possible that they're just actually baffled that anyone would find it offensive. If I take my dog out to a park or a bar with a patio, I do not gain any flexing dominance pleasure and experience nothing but an eyeroll at people that are so deeply affronted by it. I'll grant that there are places that I don't think people should have dogs, but even there, I'm more annoyed by people that are histrionically frightened of dogs than I am by the guy that probably shouldn't have brought his dog into the convenient store.

Except pit bulls, of course. I despise pit bulls.

Many popular dog breeds are herding dogs. They have a deep need to force sheep to walk a certain way all day, and if they cant do that theyll find another species to annoy. Sure, youve trained him not to do it to you, but Im also here in the park. And it definitely makes it more fun if the owners tells me not to be afraid, when in fact Im careful because I dont want to step on it.

I'm more annoyed by people that are histrionically frightened of dogs

Obviously "histrionically" is doing a lot of work here, but I've come to realize that people's experiences with dogs are very different. I have a friend whose phobia of dogs seemed strange to me, but she's from a more rural background, and over there dogs can form packs that are actually quite vicious, my hypoallergenic, and honestly kinda' lazy, mini-schnauzers are not representative of what dogs can be.

Yeah. I was raised in a family with pleasant pet dogs and I'm broadly pro-dog, but having been to parts of the world where dogs are either working animals or mangy strays I can understand why there's an aversion.

Except pit bulls, of course. I despise pit bulls.

Pit bulls are not dogs for inexperienced owners. There are people who can have pit bulls successfully- they discipline them, exercise them, follow common-sense guidance like feeding them in a bowl and not by hand, etc. Disproportionately these people do not want pits unless they have some practical need for them.

Even magnificently well trained pit bulls owned by responsible (pit ownership aside) dog owners who have experience with strong dogs - rottweilers, GSDs, etc - are liable to suddenly snap after years of being a loveable companion and maul a toddler or grandma to death, slaughter the other household pets like a wolf etc.

Were these pits raised by experienced and responsible owners from puppyhood? Almost every case of 'model dog owner suddenly mauled by pit', IIRC, was one where the dog had been raised in a dog fighting ring and obtained from a shelter(beasts should've been old yeller'd).

Pit bulls, like certain other breeds(and pits are not the worst offender here), are strong willed dogs and often fierce about what they want, with a potential for aggression. This renders them unsuitable for the vast majority of dog owners. There should be far fewer of them. But generally the 'he just suddenly snapped' narrative is BS and there were substantial warning signs and poor ownership practices.

The extreme statistical overrepresentation of pit bulls in fatal dog attacks, and the increase in these attacks in many places almost entirely in proportion with growth of the pit population, cannot be viably and holistically explained by differences in owner behavior alone.

I don't disagree with you. But most of these were 'rescue' pits(aka shelter pets). These animals should've been euthanized upon intake, and before the pit bull craze most of them didn't get adopted(I do not like this word for obtaining a pet, but it is what is in common use). Pits, like other breeds of their ilk, need to be placed with an experienced and disciplinarian owner at six to eight weeks or not become a family pet. Rednecks with dogs to git them hogs have no trouble with their hunting dogs as family pets- this is specifically a problem of terrible ownership and unadoptable animals.

Would you say the same with a lion? Obviously pit bulls are different than lions but at a certain point the animal is inherently unsafe

More comments

The park is an appropriate place to take a dog, provided it's leashed and doesn't piss or shit anywhere someone might step or slip in. Bar with an outdoor patio is more questionable, but still far better than the aforementioned airplanes, grocery stores, bars/restaurants in general (which usually don't have outdoor areas), especially if you don't let your dog upon a seat or table.

I'm more annoyed by people that are histrionically frightened of dogs than I am by the guy that probably shouldn't have brought his dog into the convenient store.

People don't choose their phobias. If I brought my emotional support anaconda into a restaurant, I'd understand if some people were histrionically uncomfortable—even if Luna, my gentle sweet velvet serpent, would never hurt a fly.

Except pit bulls, of course. I despise pit bulls.

Doggo racists of the world, unite!

If you have kids, I strongly encourage you to have your kids point and say "OH MY, A DOG IN THE GROCERY STORE! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING SO RIDICULOUS? DOGS DON'T BELONG IN THE GROCERY STORE!" and have your kids laugh maniacally.

Something about saying it in a toddler voice makes it kryptonite.

My kids did this for me without prompting. Someone was taking their tiny little rat dog on a stroller ride in the neighborhood and they saw it and said something like "WHAT!?! Why is a dog in a baby stroller!? Babies are supposed to go in strollers."

Does remind me that I'm being somewhat of a hypocrite on the dog front though. I bring my kids to the grocery store and they can probably just as easily gross someone out. They might be snotty and coughing. They'll touch anything and everything. They'll run out of aisles and sometimes run into people. And I don't even have them on a leash. (I'm joking a little for exaggeration. My kids are generally well behaved and a little shy in the grocery store, but Im just giving the shape of the argument.)

To add some iron to @hydroacetylene's point: kids in supermarkets are a specific exception made in order to serve the greater societal interest of "there should be a lot of kids" by removing hassles for parents, not an example of the normal rule and thus not something that should be generalised. (And there is no societal goal of "there should be a lot of dogs", hence an analogous exception is senseless.)

Except kids deserve accommodations and dogs don't.

I have my values and they're better than yours.

Speaking as a retail worker, litigiousness is a leading factor here, and I'm shocked that no one has brought it up (EDIT: I was beaten by a minute actually). Seeing-eye dogs were the original foot in the door that made it difficult to keep dogs out of any public space like a grocery store, particularly when combined with the ADA. In theory, this might have been a workable system: seeing-eye dogs are as well-trained as dogs get, and it isn't really feasible to credibly pass off a regular dog as a seeing-eye dog. (One small hole though: seeing-eye dogs do need to be trained in the first place, these seeing-eye-dogs-in-training are definitionally not necessarily trained yet, and it's a lot easier for some schmuck to pass off a regular dog as a seeing-eye-dog-in-training. Not that big of a problem, though; people who train seeing-eye dogs aren't themselves blind, and therefore aren't really able to credibly threaten a lawsuit over something something disability accommodation. Although, really, any psychopath can get all sorts of things by insinuating that they'll file an obviously frivolous lawsuit in the right voice. Sad!)

Then the idea of "emotional support dogs" or "therapy dogs" arose and everything went to hell. The preexisting infrastructure for mandating tolerance for seeing-eye dogs was repurposed to mandate tolerance for "emotional support dogs"; instead of acting as a disability accommodation for blindness, they acted as a disability accommodation for "I am mentally ill and will throw a fit if separated from dog". Many parallels here! The small core of asshole true believer psychiatrists quickly gave way to a much larger scene of asshole grifters who marketed identification cards, medical diagnoses, legal services, etc to the whole country's backdrop of asshole dog owners who wanted to take their dogs everywhere. Even then, it wasn't as bad a problem as it is now - but eventually, the normalization hit a critical point where businesses started setting policies of "don't even bother to ask for their medical I Need Dog ID Card they got off the internet; we just have to tolerate the dogs now", and then the I Need Dog ID Cards stopped selling so much and the normalization exploded through the roof as all of the dog owners who'd like to take their dog everywhere but had too much dignity to get one of the cards and call themselves mentally ill realized that they were now free to take their dogs everywhere. And so it goes.

A cascade of collapsing Schelling points falling to Moloch; no one able to stop them because of legally-mandated norms of politeness-to-the-unpolite and such. Very American story!

What I don’t understand is why there’s no pushback on increasing the need for certification of the dogs. It’s perfectly obvious just how few of them have even basic training ,let alone specific training for a task related to disability. It seems like a fairly simple solution. In order for a dog to be allowed it must be trained by a specific organization (or at least tested by one) and require that in order to be allowed to have such an animal in public places they need to be diagnosed with a specific condition that requires a dog as accommodation.

I feel the same about other mental health issues. The accommodations are available and the systems are abused because the vetting is nonexistent. ADHD has attracted so much fakery that I just instantly think “disappointed perfectionist seeking ADA accommodations” when someone brings it up. Likewise when someone says “Autistic” I just naturally assume that the person is scamming the ADA for protection. I’ll make exceptions if the person has extremely obvious symptoms and claims a mental illness. But to me, the process of Mental Illness Gentrification (which FdB talks about) has so muddled the concept of disability and especially mental health or similar “invisible” disabilities that I instantly think “defector” when someone tries to claim one.

Until we really start to clamp down on just anyone getting ADA accommodations at basically a say so, I’d almost rather do away with the system outside of architecture concerns just because it’s actually the reverse of the intent of the law. It started as a way to get people who were too sick, disabled or injured to participate in society to be included. It’s turned into a new way to shut people out because most people with actual disability cannot afford to get diagnosed and treated. The normal people obviously are in much better position to get diagnosed because they have the disposable income to go to the psychiatrist and because they’ve done their research know what to say to get diagnosed. They’re also more normal (because they don’t actually have the disorders they claim, so they can succeed and be normal and simply get a leg up over the autistic person or the person with actual ADHD who can’t just knuckle down and be better and do better.

What I don’t understand is why there’s no pushback on increasing the need for certification of the dogs.

It's part of a more-than-thirty-year-old regulation, and the necessary parts of the Department of Justice and Department of Transportation that make up the relevant rulemaking processes are never going to want to get involved in the necessary levels of oversight, nevermind do so with enough clarity and consistency that normal businesses will be willing to take the risk of allowing employees to make a decision. Because a lot of actual enforcement tends to involve veterans, it's a political third rail even for otherwise regulation-skeptical conservatives.

There's some Reason-style pushback, but because there's such a mess for any implementation -- who does the certifications? how do you verify that they aren't just some web template? -- there's no clear better local maxima with a path to reach it short of full prohibition, and there's no political will to do that.

They simply don't care about norms. I feel the need to point out that not all dog people are like this, of course. But there are a lot of people who simply do not give a shit that they will probably make someone sick by bringing their dog into the grocery store. It's infuriating. And don't get me started on "emotional support animals", which are just about the most antisocial thing I've ever seen from my fellow man. It's nothing more than people selfishly hitting the "defect" button, making the world worse for everyone - not least those who actually need a companion dog, like the blind.

They will not probably make someone sick.

Lots of people have allergies to dogs.

OK, so I don't bring my dog to grocery stores or other places where the norms would suggest not doing so, but I do want to give you my gut response to the question anyway:

Are dog people convinced that all humans love dogs (except for evil humans) and therefore there ought not be a problem?

I don't care that you don't like dogs. I don't think you're evil for it, but I do think it's a sign of uptight neuroticism. My dog is a shy yellow lab that never barks outside her own home. She walks directly at my side and doesn't approach strangers. If someone was afraid of her, I wouldn't deliberately inflict her upon them, but I also think it is absolutely just their problem. If, for example, I was at a bar patio and someone was bothered by her presence, I would say that it's entirely incumbent on them to go somewhere else - the dog is normal and pleasant, the anti-dog guy is the unreasonable party, and that's up to him to act accordingly.

I'll agree that there is an annoying fraction of dog-havers that think their dog belongs everywhere. The flip side of this is that I've seen people on local Reddits whining about dogs on patios because they have allergies or they're scared of dogs. I am not at all inclined to accommodate their delicate systems and sensibilities.

I think a big part is sanitary conditions. You are bringing an animal into a place that sells food. Dogs simply cannot meet the sanitation requirements of those kinds of establishments. That dog sniffing the lettuce uses that same snout to clean its privates. They also can’t talk and need to shit and piss and yes they’ll have accidents. Great.

The other problem is that most dogs are poorly trained and socialized for the environments they’re in. Yes your dog is the exception, at least by what you say here. But your dogs presence means that the establishment is going to be taking in less well behaved dogs in the same places. And the reason is that those who don’t train their dogs absolutely belief that their animal is well-behaved. And they will Ask To Speak To Manager if they aren’t allowed the same access to restaurants and bars as your dog. And they will pester other guests, pee or poop on the patio, and possibly growl at or nip at other guests. I’m not going to object if the owner of the place decided pets are okay in outdoor spaces around th3 restaurant. My objection is that normalization of pets everywhere is creating sanitation and safety problems especially for the people with allergies and phobias.

To ascertain your exact position, here's an example situation.

X and Y are total strangers who are walking along the same road (largely-untrafficked gravel road with no footpath; they're walking on the road itself) in opposite directions. X has a dog off leash, Y has another human walking with him. When X and Y reach, oh, fifteen metres apart, the dog breaks off and charges Y. Y waits for the dog to get close, then hooks a foot under the dog's belly, lifts it into the air, and throws it away from him (all with the same foot i.e. it was scooped up on the front of the ankle and inertia held it there throughout the movement). Dog lands with no damage and returns to X. X yells at Y for "kicking my dog". Is X justified?

No, because dogs should be leashed (or so predictably well behaved that this wouldn't happen). Controlling your dog is part of the basic social requirements of owning a dog. I will probably tend to think Y overreacted unless there is actually an apparent threat, but the entire situation is created by X not fulfilling the basic requirements of owning a dog.

I don’t (obviously) think it’s uptight neuroticism. I don’t like barking, I don’t like dog hairs getting everywhere, and I don’t like the smell. Those all seem like reasonable non neurotic reasons to dislike dogs.

Sure, I’m in agreement with you about your dog, taking at your word her behavior training and socialization- I used to have a chocolate lab who was much the same, and bringing her to a restaurant patio was a fun thing to do in the spring that didn’t hurt anyone. But many dogs in public are not nearly so well behaved, and this is a major problem for bringing dogs in public.

I absolutely don’t give a crap about the tender and delicate sensibilities of people who are bothered by dogs in a space. But there are often legitimate issues caused by those dogs.

Practicality, I suppose. Can't leave the dog unattended, so it must come along. Few people will refrain from getting a dog for practical reasons like those.

Getting a dog seems like getting a tattoo or piercing. Some dumb lifestyle choice unjustified by reason, but felt to be entirely necessary and tolerable to inflict upon onlookers.

Inflicting a tattoo or piercing upon onlookers is, actually, completely fine. The aesthetic choice might be questionable, but I have no idea what consistently applied principle could reasonably be used to classify aesthetic choices as intolerable to inflict upon onlookers.

Sumptuary laws have existed forever, every society tells you what aesthetic standards are acceptable to some extent.

what consistently applied principle could reasonably be used to classify aesthetic choices as intolerable to inflict upon onlookers.

None I thought of. I thought we had moved past principles and had all accepted the maxim that every opinion is based on personal aesthetic preference.

I have no idea what consistently applied principle could reasonably be used to classify aesthetic choices as intolerable to inflict upon onlookers.

Anything illegal to display to children, for one.

You can leave your dog in a crate for a few hours, or in the backyard all day, what are you talking about?

You can totally leave a dog at home while you go out. People are just overly protective of their dogs and act like it'll be a problem for little Fido to be by himself for 3 whole hours. And they're antisocial enough to not care about the cost they are inflicting on everyone else.

Of course you can leave a dog unattended. I've never known an adult dog that couldn't go at least 8 hours unattended.

The current culture in cities is to just push and see what you get away with. Right now stores have trained their employees not to push back on the general public in most cases.

So if a dog owner needs to go for a quick walk to grab something from a store then bringing the dog is convenient for them. Tying up the dog outside is seen ask risky. So they will try to bring the dog in the store.

The store doesn't see much value in using their employees to get their customers to follow norms and by laws.

The city will be on their side if it's something like smoking. A lot of blue cities will not be on their side if it's something like shoplifting. Where do dogs fall? Why should the stores risk it?

Well, also, certain people come completely unglued if they see an unattended dog. Instantly, they are the hero in a TV drama about a poor abused animal and a diligent, responsible, upstanding citizen who Does Something. There's a sort of sick, compulsive fascination for these people. A sort of thrill at finding themselves in this (generally totally invented) awful dilemma. They crave it. They crave the moral clarity; the excuse to step outside normal boundaries of polite conduct and engage in social or even physical violence (e.g. by breaking a car window).

They enter the situation without context; they address it without wisdom; and when everything has been made much worse they excuse themselves from the consequences by turning responsibility over to the governmental systems which have by this point become involved.

This is probably a metaphor for something.

Ugh. That reminds me of probably the nastiest person I've ever encountered. Back when I owned a dog, I had to stop at the grocery store for an item. I needed only one thing, and it was a cool fall day, so I knew it wouldn't be a problem to leave my dog in the car for a bit. When I came out 5-7 minutes later, I found some lady who started tearing me a new asshole about how stupid I was to leave my dog in the car, how she was just about to call the police, etc. Obviously she was a huge bitch - but the thing which really got under my skin was that she wasn't even right in her assumptions. I truly had been in the store for a short amount of time, and since it was a cool day it wasn't even warm in my car when I got in it. My dog had never been in any sort of danger at all, despite that lady assuming she was.

If nothing else, it was a good lesson in how you don't necessarily know what's going on when you arrive at a scene. I try to remember that lady and her faulty assumptions every time I encounter someone who I feel tempted to judge harshly because I saw them in a situation which looks real bad from the outside.

If I wanted to flirt with dropping inappropriate comments I might suggest that in my experience the people who do this are almost entirely women and male self-identified feminists. It's a type.

What is wrong with being a woman?

Who said anything was?

The seeming need to render judgement without adequate knowledge of the case. Not sure whether this is actually more prevalent in women, but it does seem that way to me. Assuming that it is the case, have some speculation as to the reason: maybe women suffer less consequences for judging incorrectly, or are better at deflecting when their judgement is pointed out to be false? Or maybe those are just the women I know. They tend to offer wild theories as stone-cold facts when speaking on topics they have barely any information on. When someone points this out, they will either double down on being correct without needing more evidence or escalate into an outright fight because why are you doubting them - or switch the topic immediately, only to get back to the same wild theories sooner or later. These women seem to have no channel for processing disagreement and no capacity whatsoever for epistemic humility, especially once challenged because a challenge can only ever be in bad faith.

Man, have I had some experiences with women lately.

Not actually a warning, but come on man, if you want to say something you think might get modded, prefacing it with "If I wanted to..." is the I'm Not Touching You of forum posting.

Fair enough, though my intent was to be sort of self-effacing by acknowledging that something so offhanded and inflammatory should, legitimately, be expected to have more work put into it. But, also, that additional work didn't actually occur to me as something that would provide additional value, so I went ahead and posted it anyway.

Moral busybodies and savior complexes. Plus, the women know their pussy passes will protect them from getting their shit rocked, and male feminists generally haven’t had experiences in sports or fighting where that has happened so it’s not really in their personal Overton window.

This reminds me of the recent 2XChromosomes thread. The woman OP decided to inject herself into a situation where a drunk guy was (while presumably being insufficiently attractive and sufficiently unattractive) chatting up some chick and then accidentally got into the chick’s Uber before she did, including shoving the guy, then got big mad and the ick because her boyfriend declined to intercede as their white-knight and meatshield. One comment on PurplePillDebate summarized the story something along the lines of “she’s angry that her Pokemon didn’t want to fight.” Naturally, most of the comments side with the woman OP in denouncing the boyfriend, but making sure to clarify it’s not a gendered thing, that it’s because he failed to do the Bare Minimum in being a Decent Human Being.

There seems to be something to that, yeah. I've noticed that in general, feminists tend to be people who desperately want a righteous cause they can stand up for. The sort of person who deeply admires those who participated in the civil rights movement (or other similar social changes), and wishes that they themselves could be a part of something so grand and heroic. Unfortunately, we're all out of causes like that lately, so instead people often fall into the trap of fighting that hard over insignificant things. Thus, modern feminism. It's plausible to me that you might find such people overrepresented among other types of moral busybodies.

Weirdly enough though, they also seem to be cat people, not dog people.

I've noticed that in general, feminists tend to be people who desperately want a righteous cause they can stand up for.

Yes, but that's true of all ideologues. It's true of me; it's true of rightist militias. It's not the urge that's wrong; it's where you channel it that might be.

(My causes at the moment are civil defence and stopping AI.)

Plutarch:

On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them, Caesar asked if the women in their country did not bear children, thus in right princely fashion rebuking those who squander on animals that proneness to love and loving affection which is ours by nature, and which is due only to our fellow-men.

There, now it's political.

How little some things change even over two thousand years.

I sit here now having listened to near-continuous barking since waking up. Owners do nothing about it. Landlords do nothing about it. Noise complaint line does nothing about it.

Common sense rules already exist: dog-free housing, leash laws, noise ordinances, restrictions on pets in places that serve food, pick-up-feces laws, etc. A certain subset of dog owners simply takes it upon themselves to consistently ignore these rules. They pull up “Emotional Support” certificates or just indignantly grandstand any time someone calls them out. There are effectively no dog-free spaces left. You'd think it'd be easy to find at least one apartment building that categorically denies them but it simply doesn't exist in my city. From what I've read, it doesn't really exist in any city in the US.

On some level it makes sense. An animal that was selectively bred for unquestioning loyalty is obviously appealing to the kind of person that any thinking human would find selfish and detestable — someone so insufferable it took thousands of years of genetic engineering to create something that responds not with the disgust they deserve but instead some facsimile of love and adoration. Of course the kind of person to believe rules are beneath them would have significant overlap with dog-lovers.

But at the end of the day, dog-ownership, even by good owners, has to be one of the highest negative-externality hobbies in developed society. I can’t walk on the grass in my city because it’s invariably soaked in urine and feces. Every sidewalk smells of urine constantly. My head has to be angled down when walking anywhere to watch out for the feces piles and skid marks. There is rarely an hour that goes by in my home without a cacophony of barking nearby. Both of the nearest parks reek of wet dog. Dog-walkers take up the entire sidewalk and make no effort to keep their pet from slobbering over you. They bring their dogs into grocery stores and feign ignorance while they lick boxes.

I’m utterly sick of it. If I woke up to find a Thanos glove I’d snap dogs out of existence permanently. I have minimal doubts the world would be better for it.

But at the end of the day, dog-ownership, even by good owners, has to be one of the highest negative-externality hobbies in developed society. I can’t walk on the grass in my city because it’s invariably soaked in urine and feces.

Urine is harder, but anyone who isn't cleaning up their dog's poop is by no means a good owner. They are a terrible owner who shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.

This is completely false.

  • -19

You've been told repeatedly to stop dropping low-effort "Nuh uhs" with no attempt to actually articulate your argument, and last time you were told you'd be banned if you keep doing it.

In fairness, that was a year ago, but on the other hand, you rarely post, and it seems whenever you drop by it's to post like this.

3 day ban. Knock it off.

Please steelman leaving dogshit in public places.

Yeah no. Clean up your dog's poop in public places. If you can't handle that, then don't have a dog.

Some non-negligible fraction of the time, feces are not fully solid, which means even a decent effort leaves quite a bit of residue behind. I'd say my walks are 50/50 chunks and skid marks. It simply disgusts me that we as a society see dog owners covering our cities in literal piss and shit daily and simply tolerate it.

There are no rules that are sufficiently enforceable. Look at the ineffectiveness of the laws that already exist. These people don't even have the decency to stay out of non-dog buildings despite the abundance of dog-friendly ones. The one time I lived in one that purported to be so an emotional support pitbull moved in across the hall within a year and would bark violently every time I even got close to my own door. The only solution is a blanket ban, but too many Americans would rather drown in slobber, barking, and excrement than give up the one thing too stupid to realize they don't deserve affection.

I like dogs, but I’ve lately been shocked by the lax discipline of most dog owners. No problem with people bringing dogs to Home Depot(food places are different, obv) in general, but there’s behavior minima for dogs in public and most dog owners seem unwilling to even try to enforce them.

But why is Home Depot okay? It’s a place of business. Where is the dividing line?

Because they explicitly allow dogs in their place of business. Several places do.

I've never heard of a grocery store allowing dogs inside, which makes me question where you live.

I've never taken my dog to home Depot but I cannot imagine a well behaved dog being an issue there.

Because it doesn’t sell food.

Home Depot totally sells snacks.

What about say a bank?

Meh. Kinda up to the bank. I certainly would find it odd, but I wouldn't have any problem with a bank that decided to be pet friendly.

So do you believe outside of places like grocery stores and medical places there should be no places that cultural are off limits to dogs?

I don't particularly care about the question of 'can you bring your dog to the bank'. I certainly think a formal ball shouldn't be pet friendly. I certainly think dogs shouldn't be allowed inside the buildings of restaurants and grocery stores. But allowing dogs doesn't really bother me outside of places with obvious reasons for not allowing dogs.

And the floors are concrete. And they don’t have rules against dogs!

But apparently the grocery stores don’t have rules against dogs either (or they’re not enforced, which amounts to the same thing).

I grew up with dogs and they're super normal to me, and yet it still confuses and dismays me how randomly entitled dog culture is now. Especially coupled with general laxness in obedience training and people having some sort of weird 'my dog is a good dog and can never potentially act out' mindset.

Are dog people convinced that all humans love dogs (except for evil humans) and therefore there ought not be a problem?

Basically this.

Also, dogs are generally very demanding, so single people living in apartments (who probably shouldn't have dogs) take them anywhere they're allowed to, so as to not leave them alone at home.

It was game over as soon as people started using the phrase "dog mom" without a shred of irony.

There is something very sick in our society that people believe that their pets are equivalent to children. I'm not saying one shouldn't love their pets - I certainly loved my dog, and I cried genuine tears of grief when she died at a young age. But she wasn't my child, and I never got that mixed up. She was my pet, not a human, and not my child in any way. If it had ever come down to my dog's life versus the life of a complete stranger, I would have chosen to save the stranger in a heartbeat.

Sometimes I see bumper stickers along the lines of "My grandkids have fur and paws <3" and all I can do is grimace and silently appeal to heaven. For what, I do not know. Salvation? Cleansing fire? But, something, though.

Im sorry they like different things than you do.

  • -12

Yeah, they really shouldn't.

When I was a youth, 'grand dogs' was a snide remark made to a young couple that needed to imitate rabbits. We should go back to that.

Me too. Not all preferences are equally valid and theirs are bad.

Dog owners are rapidly outnumbering parents in cities. They therefore can start making demands on businesses. Power in numbers.

People are lonelier than ever and dogs are a band aid solution. I like most dogs but I find myself more and more disgusted by them, leaving shit everywhere, loud, etc. probably because I’m never lonely anymore and also a parent with priorities beyond this stuff

The general feeling I get (not a dog owner myself, FWIW) is that people have been conditioned to think they are special in some way. Their dog (or kid, or whatever) is better than everyone else's. That mixed with a bit of main character syndrome and you get what we see now. Maybe this is what happens when you give everyone awards when growing up?

Another angle that would support this same outcome is that it seems to be considered rude to tell someone not to do something or that whatever they are doing is "weird." You make the accused a "victim," and suddenly, they have that as a bludgeon to wield against you. I'm not a proponent of bullying, but that tended to keep people more in line and enforced a sense of shared social norms.

I have no idea how to get back to "normal."

I was at a public park not long ago when one of my children, who had only just begun to toddle, wandered about fifteen feet away from me. Not a big problem, I thought, and of course I was keeping an eye on him. On the far side of the park, at least a minute's walk away, a young woman showed up with a big dog and let it off the leash. It slammed across the park faster than I could believe, a missile headed right at my child. I know dogs, I've raised dogs, I've hunted with dogs, and I've worked with professional hunting dog trainers. This dog was trying to kill my baby, and it was so fast I almost couldn't react in time. Only my experience saved my child. My wife just watched with a glazed expression as all this played out. She does not know dogs. Anyway I was able to get close enough in time and yell and managed to get the dog to swerve at the last minute and back off while I scooped up my kid. Then I prepared to fight it to the death as it gave every indication of being about to try to jump up and snatch my kid out of my arms, which I've seen pit bulls do in videos, so I was ready. I kept yelling and there was a bit of a standoff until finally the owner showed up and leashed the dog. She seemed flustered and mostly wanted to avoid acknowledging what had just happened, and quickly left.

It was a terrifying experience. Dogs are not casual objects of entertainment or companionship. Modern people are so divorced from the realities of animal husbandry that I'm amazed we don't have more horrific catastrophes as a result.

I still take my kids to that park, but now I'm a helicopter parent in a way I never expected to be. At least for the smallest ones.

This is the main reason I don't want dogs around me and my family much anymore. A lot of dog owners seem to have zero appreciation of how disturbing it is to experience this.

You have no idea what that dog was trying to do.

  • -23

That is STILL A PROBLEM.
If a large dog is charging at a small vulnerable child with uncertain intent, it would be utterly irresponsible to let the dog do whatever mysterious thing it's planning to do when it reaches the baby.

An experienced dog owner can absolutely tell when a dog is charging playfully or aggressively.

Big dogs that aren't properly socialized around little kids are also known to play overly roughly and hurt kids by mistake. With a toddler, there's simply not a lot of margin for error. A strange dog actually charging at my child would get the same reaction, and I grew up playing rugby with the dog.

He did the right thing. Dogs are predators and have been known to eat babies (NB: dingoes are feral domestic dogs, not wild creatures; there are no native canids in Australia); scaring a dog away unnecessarily does not remotely compare to "child eaten" in badness, so even a tiny chance of it justifies what he did.

👍

There are some dog breeds which are both not for an inexperienced owner, and very appealing to women with little experience with big dogs. I am not quite sure why.

Offhand, it's always occurred to me as very clearly compensatory.

The little dogs, Yorkies and the like, have always struck me as the ones that substitute for babies and toddlers. Not the big pits that some women who don’t know how to manage dogs own.

The big ones are substitutes for horses or even husbands, for the natural desire to tame a beast. (This isn’t just a gendered thing, either.)

They could also serve as "don't-rape-me" dogs. I notice that, in my suburban neighborhood, you almost never see a (white, non-immigrant) woman on the sidewalk without at least one dog.

They're not compensating for a child. They're compensating for a man. A big, masculine, muscular, loyal, protective force.

That would explain why they let it tell them what to do, I suppose.

You might be assuming everyone around you also thinks that bringing dogs to cafes etc is weird. Maybe a larger proportion likes seeing dogs around the place. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case just from how much attention a cute dog gets from strangers when out in public.

Yeah — it seems that some believe the only sin is saying “no.” The question is why.

I think this is a rather localized phenomenon. I never see dogs* in stores where I live and, as a dog owner, the idea of wanting to take my dog with me to the store makes no sense. The only people I've met who do so seem to have picked the idea up living in the south western US (eg, CA, NV), either having grown up there or moved later in life, and people around here have no problem telling them to keep their dogs home.

*With the rare exception of seeing eye dogs and police dogs.

I never see dogs*

*With the rare exception of seeing eye dogs and police dogs

  • No dogs are permitted on the premises under any circumstances.
  • Any animal assisting a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat.
  • Any animal entering on police business shall be deemed to be a wombat.
  • Any animal which the Speaker wishes to admit shall be deemed to be a mongoose.

--supposedly from the rules of some Oxbridge debating society.

Further evidence that debators are far less clever than they think.

It was also a big thing in Washington (at least Seattle) when I lived there... restaurants, grocery stores, whatever.

I worked at Amazon (office, not warehouse) and it was company policy that you could even bring your dogs to the office if they were well behaved. I honestly enjoyed it when my coworkers brought in their dogs -- but much of that was that they weren't random dogs so you got to know them. The 404 page on Amazon still has pics of people's dogs. The real differentiator here was that this was all done with permission and vetting.

I'm now in Nashville and I'm not seeing this effect as much here. Though people have a habit of not leashing their laws out where I live. Admittedly, I'm out in the exurbs, so that might have something to do with that phenomenon.

Dogs with jobs are a very different thing in any case. Real service animals are a true boon to their owners. Police dogs are in a similar boat.

A classic post from Ask a Manager on this subject. It has interesting updates which are linked at the bottom of the post.

To be clear, my post wasn’t intended to capture things like seeing eye dogs.

Oh, I totally got that from your original post. I was just responding to the last bit thrownaway's comment above mine.

I also get really annoyed at all of the "emotional support dogs" that people claim are protected by the ADA, which they aren't really, hence "real service animals." Though I would love for someone to have an emotional support miniature horse just as a troll. (They also are mentioned by the ADA along with dogs as being eligible for being service animals)

My cousin had an emotional support falcon.

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