On the internet, no one knows you are Iranian.
Life’s a bitch.
At last! maniacal laugh
“…looked like two kittens fighting under a burka.”
Dogs just bark loudly & bay at the moon. Why would any Iranian Lawmaker feel threatened?
That would explain a lot of things about the 1979 Revolution and its aftermath.
Jews cause all plagues, dumbass! Take away the infection-vectors they use and you’ve drawn their fangs!
But they sure are beautiful! 
. . . Say, is the one pictured single?
Holy shit balls… that was funny. Thank you sir. 
Thanks to attitudes like that.
In the Middle East, generally the only dogs around are feral dogs which can be quite scary and dangerous.
I remember one story from a friend of mine in Turkey who’d wandered off from his parents and wound up being spotted by a pack of wild dogs and he said he’d never been so scared in his life when the dogs turned around and glared at him.
When my parents first came to the US(my father is Iranian, my mother is American), one of the issues they had was dogs. My mother loved them, but my father(who was very much not religious) was really unnerved to be around them and it took him a while to warm up to them.
I can certainly see why many view this law as being “backward and retarded” but to Iranians this wouldn’t be any sillier than a state representative in Montana introducing a bill prohibiting having wolves as pets because most Iranians see dogs as being comparable to wolves and the dogs in Iran are about as dangerous as wolves.
Well that does make sense. It still seems to be from a position of ignorance, but much more understable ignorance. Living in a dog society when I see a strange dog I know how to handle it. I know dog body language. I know if it’s friendly, or not, or how to handle it if isn’t. These are learned skills, that someone strange to dogs wouldn’t know. They’d just know about the teeth.
What I don’t know is how to milk a cow. In a cow milking situation it’d be very easy to get kicked in the face so I might be a bit more nervous around a cow than someone from a farm would be, and in fact seem quite silly to them.
Ignorance fought, thanks.
Every time I see this thread pop up I see it as saying ‘Iranian lawmakers want to bang dogs’. 
It always makes me chuckle a bit over the imagery that invokes.
-XT
They like some sexy bitches.
I live in a largely Muslim/Arabic area. The fears of dogs is real and unreasoned. I walk my beagles in the park and when an Arabic kid wants to pet them, a parent runs up and says no he was bit by a dog before and shouldn’t go near them. It has happened like that several times. The kid always looks disappointed because he wanted to pet the dogs. They would be in danger of serious licking.
I could hide my burning dog in Miss Turkey’s kitty while under a burqa. Call me a freak if you must.
Then this legislation aimed at pet dogs seems pointless.
Some Bangladeshi people I know have said that the same applies there, hence most Bangladeshis (first-generation, at least) in my area of London fearing dogs even when they’re on leads. It’s hard to shake off that kind of ingrained fear.
I don’t think it’s really a muslim thing, exactly, given how many Muslim countries do actually have dog ownership as a norm; Islam isn’t homogenous.
Btw, that Turkish dog weighs more than me! Woah! I’d be a bit wary of that one!
When an American thinks of a dog, they think of frisbee in the park. When a Middle Easterner thinks of a dog, they think of a pest that scavenges corpses. It’s hardly the same thing. You also need to understand that there’s no such thing as spaying/neutering in these countries. Hell, they don’t even use leashes. You let a few people have dogs and before you know it, the whole neighborhood is overrun with, not man’s best friends, but mangy, disease-ridden pests.
(Not moderating)
The cultural relativism that always pops up in these conversations amazes me. So what if Singapore had a ban on chewing gum, or if there’s one day a week when you can’t buy alcohol. Those things are nearly inconsequential, compared to banning dogs or similar pets (mainly cats, presumably, although I imagine there are other candidates).
If the ban goes through, would kennels and vets be restricted or prohibited? What about pet supply stores and food manufacturers?