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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Say it aint so Rocky, Rocky II, and Simon Lebon!!!
I LOVED YOU AND YOU USED ME!!!!!!!!!!!
I know it.
Get the fuck over it.
Can us dog-haters come out of the closet now?
I'd recommend bear spray.
I'm mostly just teasing, but curious about your thoughts. Dog kicker.
Tis what I do.
Oh, and dogs should always, always, always be on a leash when they are outside their home. Always and without exception. So that beagle's owner is a bad dog owner and should not be allowed to have a dog.
Also I wish people's children would also always be on a leash as well.
Ok, now back to my troll cave. Thank you.
I was hiking with a much older relative, and when a sixty-year-old woman with gray hair yells "CALL YOUR DOG BACK! CALL HIM BACK!" the answer is not "He's friendly!" It's "Here boy." Dog #1 had just run right up to me, jumped up and licked my sunglasses while dog #2 ran straight past me to cheerfully but quite unwelcomely accost said gray-haired super-scared-of-dogs relative.
Why doesn't she like dogs? Because people yell "He's friendly!" right before she gets BITTEN by dogs. And no, the dog owner did not like being told that that hiking trail had a six-foot-leash rule. (Signs ALL OVER THE PLACE.) But I got to fill out a police report!
Or the tldr version:
"OH NO! THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND ME!
INSTEAD IT APPEARS TO REVOLVE AROUND THE SUN... AND... AND SOMETIMES SHIT HAPPENS THAT MY MINOR CULT OF CELEBRITY DOES NOT INFLUENCE! IT'S JUST AWFUL!
WHY DO I HAVE TO SHARE THE WORD WITH YOU PLEBES!"
b/w
get some human friends.
Whoever this Farhad Manjoo is, Dan clearly agrees with his idiotic remarks. We all know how much Dan hates dogs and how completely fucking ignorant he is about them--or rather, we thought we knew; now we see that he's even more ignorant than before: on this recent picnic Dan effectively taught a bunch of small children that it's acceptable to hit dogs "pretty rough[ly]." His pathetic excuse is that he "didn't have a choice."
Seriously? That dog obviously has a bad owner who either wasn't supervising it properly or hadn't trained it sufficiently. Or perhaps the dog had run away or got lost and was hungry. A fully grown beagle is what, 20lbs? And Dan is, what, 8 or 9 times that size? The dog wasn't attacking, it was being annoying. Nobody was in danger. Yet instead of doing anything sensible Dan overreacted, gave the dog a hard smack, and then came here to post about how horrible dogs are. What an asshole.
really, dog haters, it's much better now.
The asshole is the dog's owner.
That's more or less how dogs tell each other to "knock it the fuck off." You shouldn't feel bad unless you hit the dog hard enough to hurt it.
Also, comparing a dog that has a home to a homeless child is ridiculous.
That's fucking inconvenient though.
Once and for all, Dan needs to leave writing, talking about, and dealing with dogs to someone else, because on this subject he's a complete idiot and an asshole.
But when doggies are being naughty, as the picnic doggy was, a slap on the snout is not out of the question. I hope he wasn't lost.
It's the same with dogs.
This post isn't hating on dogs, it's hating on the people who think dogs absolutely belong everywhere, anytime, and god forbid anyone is upset when they let their dogs run around unsupervised. Most of the dog owners I know hate those people because they give all dog owners a bad name.
Anyway, I look forward to this column being the zero point of what will, by 2015 at the latest, be an indisputable believe held by every Social Justice Tumblr that Dan Savage abuses animals.
I dislike dogs, but I realize they are animals that behave in animal ways. Too many people are so goddamned oblivious they stand around in a perpetual fog, believing that everyone knows what they know and feels how they feel.
'Only in America"? What? What 'civilized' places are you talking about? What do they do there, serve dogs at the table with a napkin stuffed in their collar? In most parts of the world that dog would have been kicked hard. What do they do in Sweden (that's what I imagine you mean by civilized).
So as long as dog owners follow "a few sensible rules" we can all live together. What happens when they don't? (which is the case, in general, because everyone thinks their dog is so awesome)
Oh, and what should Dan have sensibly done for this poor dog, let him have a bite of his salad? Given it a massage? Or gone and found the owner, and adopted the dog if he couldn't be found?
At least until the CEO of the Seattle Times sees them.
I don't have to love either of you. I have to behave in a civil manner and not put MY dog on you.
Do the same for me.
And that "substitute child for dog" is nonsense and you know it.
A dog is NOT a child. And therein lies the problem with this dog mentality today.
You didn't read my post very closely did you? Please try again.
53: he's said so plenty of times.
I'm in a rental house. Moved here a year ago, at which time this routine was already well established.
I'm moving before the end of the month. I think my parting action will be to take a giant dump on my neighbour's driveway.
And for practically ALL that 30,000 years or so, dogs were confined to rural working situations such as hunting, herding & home protection. It's really been in only the last 100 years or so that they've crept into the urban environment; and that trend has outright exploded in the last 10 - 15 years. As a general rule, if you lived in a city and had to have a pet, you got a cat; dogs, at least those above "miniature" and "toy" classifications were considered too big and ungainly for city-dwellers, unless one had sufficient yard space (or proximity to a park) to allow them proper exercise. Nowadays though, with the profusion of so-called "pocket" breeds, the dang things are everywhere! And the only thing worse than being surrounded by a pack of yappy, high-strung Chihuahuas, Pugs & Pomeranians, is also having to endure their obsessively twee owners, many of whom apparently view the concept of dog leashes as tantamount to slavery.
@26:
In this instance, Dan shouted three separate verbal warnings that the dog patently ignored, from which one can only infer that said dog's owner apparently falls into the "training my canine-companion is an act of oppression!" category. Giving it a light smack on the FOURTH occasion is not "overreacting", and is no different than using a shock-collar or choke-chain to similar effect.
Now, that being said, I agree that in principle physical force is a lousy method for training & disciplining one's pet - but, it's also the responsibility of the pet owner to ensure their animal is properly trained and socialized in the first place; something this particular dog's owner does not seem to have done, at least not very effectively.
So, Dan shouted at the dog several times & when it didn't respond, he hit it - the dog will get over it, the dog's owner will (hopefully) do a better job restraining it in the future, and the world will not come to a crashing end as a result.
Dog didn't shit in his yard ever again.
As a side note, when I was a teenager an unleashed German shepherd attacked me and I kicked it to death, so I am very aware of how terrifying an unleashed animal can be. It took me years to get over the PTSD and nightmares.
Keep your animals under control.
them. I also have a child.
Domesticated dogs are dependent on humans so it is up to humans that choose to care for a dog, to CARE for the animal and ensure that it doesn't harass and endanger other people.
If you let your dog run without a leash, YOU are abusing your dog by being negligent. Whether it is a car tire or someones fist, it is still your fault.
Dogs are not children. I love my dogs, but if I ever was faced with the possibility that they ever would become a danger to my child, loved ones, or strangers I would go to the vet and put them to sleep with tears in my eyes.
Farhad's piece is not an anti dog rant, its a rant about irresponsible owners.
I told him to grab it by its fucking collar already, instead of ineffectually shouting for the widdle puppy doggy (that was neither little nor a puppy -- it was a terrifyingly large full grown beast). The owner told me that the doggy's usually never like this. I told him if that dog ever gets near me again, I'm calling the cops on the mutt.
Funnily enough, I never DID see that dog again.
Not everyone likes dogs. Some people are allergic to/frightened of dogs. It is their right not to be harassed by your dog in a public space. Why are there so many clueless fuckwits who don't understand this?
Dan is a self-professed dog hater. He routinely posts things about dogs that are just plain wrong, and here he's combined a post about hitting a dog hard with a quote from a ridiculously anti-dog post by someone else. Dan often gives great advice about sex and relationships, but his dislike of dogs turns him into an idiot where they're concerned, and this post makes him an asshole too.
james6: You are a douchebag. STFU.
So the comparison to a lost child is not about the value of a dog's life being the same as a child, it's that they're both helpless without human adult assistance. And fall quickly into suffering if abandoned and no body gives a shit.
I like dogs, but
1. A dog owner's lack of supervision of its pet imposes no ethical obligation on me to divert my attention from my planned social gathering (or work or whatever) and spend my time returning the animal to someone who is neglecting it and being a bad pet owner in the first place. Honestly, it is this sense of entitlement of other people's personal space and time that is a big part of the problem.
2. I am not going to grab a dog I don't know by the collar, nor would most prudent people.
I will say this, however: if you don't want to take time out from your "planned social gathering" to find the dog's owner, all you need to do is call animal control. If an actual solution to dogs running off leash in areas where that isn't permitted is what you (and Dan) are really after, that's what you'd need to do. Seattle Animal Control will intervene if there are repeated problems with the same owner. Bonus: animal control might even come and collect the dog, forcing the owner to pay a fine to get it back.
Some times I'm in a park and the ground is wet and... IT'S JUST AWFUL! I just beat up the ground until it yelps back and suddenly becomes dry again.
There was this one time I was in park and there bugs crawling all over and... IT WAS JUST AWFUL! So I hit them and they flew off.
The world is ruined by all these unwanted unpredictable acts of fate.... and it's JUST AWFUL! Why can't the world just do what I want all the time!?! Ima gonna beat the world up and tell you all about it.
Dogs! Bugs! Wet grass! AWFUL! Come on. Let's all agree that world is an awful place.
While I don't have a problem with giving a dog a smack when it is not behaving, in this day and age when dog nuts will have you arrested for even a light whack to a missbehaving animal, hitting the dog is more likely to get you into trouble.
I would have stood up and shouted, "The person who owns this dog better come get it now, or they can go get it at the pound because I'm calling animal control".
Then you take out your cell phone and call animal control and have them come take it away to the pound. The owner can then go pay a fine to get it back.
Nah, just jokin bro.
But people who never move to another part of the country or world are known to experience brain shrinkage in their senior years. So consider it.
How so? Dan gives the dog repeated verbal warnings, which the dog ignores, and so in order to dissuade it from continuing its inappropriate behavior, he swats it away, lightly or roughly, whatever, but the result is that the dog gets the message that its not welcome, isn't getting a snack, and so it leaves. What else is he reasonably expected to do under the circumstances? Sweep the dog up in his arms, cuddle and coo at it while spending the rest of his afternoon searching for the owner? Maybe give it a little back massage to relieve the stress of it running around trying to mooch food from unsuspecting picnickers?
News Flash: Its a FUCKING DOG, not a child, or even a moronic dog owner. One smack from a stranger is NOT, repeat, NOT going to traumatize it for the rest of its doggie life. And just maybe, next time its owner acts like an irresponsible douche-nozzle and lets it wander off unleashed and unsupervised it will think twice about engaging in similar behavior. In addition, Dan obviously feels some modicum of remorse over his action, and will probably think twice himself when (not if, not with this many dogs running around loose in this town) he finds himself in a similar situation as well.
In short, both dog and Dan have experienced a small moment of behavior modification, so what the fuck is the major malfunction here?
If dog owners don't want their dogs smacked - or worse - by strangers maybe they should pay more goddamned attention to them in the first place...
And to whoever it was that said cats don't care about you. That isn't always true. Some breeds or individuals are little shits just like dogs. On the other hand, get a nice lap cat like a tonkinese and they will imprint on you like a little boxer. Only you, though. They will tolerate everyone else.
Then the dog gets impounded and put down, and the owner gets a pretty important life lesson about keeping your dog on a lease (and probably a lawsuit to really drive the message home).
Seems pretty straight forward to me- How is any of this Dan's fault again..?
There was a dog in line at the grocery the other day and I told my kid not to touch it, because if it was in a grocery store it was obviously a service dog and working. Owners went VERY quiet. Passive-aggressive? Yes. How many fucks given about this fact? Zero.
If my dog is out, he is on a leash. He does not go indoors where he is not explicitly allowed.
Wait, I take it back! Small furry dogs can be useful after all: They can be tied to the end of a long pole & used to dust window blinds.
It's part of the displacement of personal responsibility, this time in dog form. People smoke, and they flick their butts, and the instant it leaves their finger, no longer their problem. People leave their small children in a store and go get coffee; it's the store's problem suddenly.
I was at a playground a couple of years ago, one with sand. There's a giant sign that says "no animals permitted" and we are in a leashed area, in any case (in Seattle). A big, friendly dog is loping all over the place. It doesn't appear to belong to anyone. I look around and finally figure out the owners. My two small children are with me.
"Is that your dog?" I ask. The woman looks at me, exasperated. "Yes." "Can you please take your dog out of the playground?" She rolls her eyes and leashes the dog nearby. It starts wailing.
I am somehow the bad guy, not her. Explain that to me. I felt bad for the dog.
I hate dog owners. Not all of them, but enough. If your dog is out in the city, even on a leash, that's often not enough, if you think a leash makes up for no training.
I have a friend who has a dog, and she posted a pic of her dog the other day surrounded by doggie treats, with doggie treats on top of her paws and on top of her nose. Now that's a trained dog. If your dog can't do that, don't bring him around other people, period. If your dog touches another person, or sniffs him, or barks, or ANYTHING ELSE, that animal should be taken from you.
I also agree with the person who suggested increasing the off-leash fines. I think $2500 is a good place to start.
People screw up. And for all we know this dog was lost. Show a little tolerance.
No, Dan doesn't have a duty to find this dog's owner. And I'm not too bothered by the thump on the nose. And the dog should obviously be on a leash. But it would have been nice to try to find the dog's owner or at least call animal control (not to punish, but no owner = lost dog).
A little tolerance goes a long way in a city.
Just a few months ago my small town fire department wasted a stupid amount of money "rescuing" the dog from an island in the pond. Morons.
Hitler.