Farhad Manjoo hates your stupid fucking dog:

Sometime in the last decade, dogs achieved dominion over urban America. They are everywhere now, allowed in places that used to belong exclusively to humans, and sometimes only to human adults: the office, restaurants, museums, buses, trains, malls, supermarkets, barber shops, banks, post offices. Even at the park and other places where dogs belong, they’ve been given free rein. Dogs are frequently allowed to wander off leash, to run toward you and around you, to run across the baseball field or basketball court, to get up in your grill. Even worse than the dogs are the owners, who seem never to consider whether there may be people in the gym/office/restaurant/museum who do not care to be in close proximity to their dogs. After all, what kind of monster would have a problem with a poor innocent widdle doggie? It’s a dog’s world. We just live in it. And it’s awful.

The other day I was in a park having a picnic dinner with friends—including some small children—and a beagle ran up and tried to get at our food. The dog had a collar on so it belonged to someone. We tried to shoo the fucking dog away but it just circled around and made another lunge at the food. We shooed it away again and looked around for the dog's owner. The park was crowded but no one seemed to be looking for their dog—or coming to our aid. We shooed the fucking beagle away from the food a third time. When it lunged at our food a fourth time I gave the dog a pretty rough shove. Okay, I hit the dog. I felt bad—honestly—and if I had had a choice I would've preferred to hit the dog's absent/AWOL/clueless/inconsiderate owner. But I didn't have a choice. So I hit the dog.

And it worked.