Why do people insist on bringing their surrogate children everywhere they go? Do they really think that the damn things are so irresistably cute that everyone is going to just melt at the sight of them? Standing next to someone who has one of these vicious, snarling, yapping furballs makes be homicidal (and not towards the dog). Dogs don’t belong at lectures. Dogs don’t belong at public venues where people don’t expect to be barked at, snapped at, or snarled at. Leave the fucking thing in the fucking car with the windows open. Or at home. Or back in the motorhome.
The worst so far was the idiot who brought fluffy to the goddamned restaurant two weeks ago. I would have thought that this was against health regulations, but apparently people in Wisconsin like hair and dander in their food, as this guy sat down at a nearby table and the staff didn’t bat an eye. The guy proceeds to gush over the dog like it was a baby, babbling inanely at it, and lifts it up on the bench seat next to him. The people at the next table were obviously very unhappy with this. He then asks the server to bring water to put in Bowser’s dish, which he sets on the table. She at least had the sense to tell him it had to be on the floor.
More recently, at a Ranger talk in the Badlands, the woman next to me had a ratbait mutt that snarled at everyone nearby and barked incessantly whenever it saw someone else’s ratbait, disrupting the talk and annoying everybody there. Instead of removing herself, she grinned like a moron and baby-talked to the dog, providing further distractions. I wanted to choke her with the leash.
You don’t think they’re adorable when they act like they weigh ten times what they do? You don’t want to tickle their yapping chins and scratch behind their pulled-back ears?
K9 Cops really get pissed off if you talk babytalk at their partners, “Aren’t you the CUTEST little thing! I’d want to pick you up and hug you all over.”
In Wisconsin if it isn’t a guide dog that’s a health code violation. You should have called the authorities and watched them ticket the place for letting the dog stay.
I understand if this was northern Wisconsin, as I had to wait 30 minutes for a bill while the waitress watched her show including the commercials. I’ve written about Bumfuck Wisconsin before and the vacation from Hell. I would have expected your sighting would have been of a lap skunk up there. This is north of the town where they allowed drunks to throw blasting caps into a burning pile of trees all night
I’ve owned a Chihuahua. Possibly the laziest Chihuahua in existence. She didn’t yap unless injured, never nipped, and barked only occasionally, usually at that traditional dog nemesis, The Mailman. And she only peed on our lawn. The breed is not the problem. The people are.
When any breed becomes popular, unscrupulous breeders will breed and sell as many as they can to cash in, and will do so without taking into account things like health and temperament as long as the resulting puppies look good. This happens with all breeds and small and toy breeds are by no means immune.
To make matters worse, many boneheads who buy a small or toy breed dog don’t understand that it’s a fucking dog. It needs to be trained just as a larger dog does, not only so it behaves but so it knows its place in the family - an untrained dog is generally not a happy dog. Little dogs also need exercise just like their bigger cousins, and being carried around in someone’s arms or bag does not count as exercise. Oh, and of course being small doesn’t excuse them from health laws as well as common courtesy toward people with allergies for instance; the one thing I don’t like about (well-raised) Chihuahuas is their ability to shed their own body weight in hair and dander every single day.
Many of those dogs are just as unhappy with their lives as you are with your encounters with them. Give the owners a good cluesticking. Please.
Absolutely. One area that is little-known (except to rockhounds) is called the “agate allotment”. It’s located about 7 miles south of Interior, SD. If you don’t know it’s there, the faded signs won’t announce its presence. This large area is grazing land, but it’s also an area where anybody can open one of the barbed wire gates, drive in, and hunt for agates to their heart’s content (unlike in the Park, where they amputate your fingers if they catch you).
Boyo Jim: Nope. I used to drive Jeeps years ago, but now have a Saturn Vue. I miss my Wranglers.
Clarification: We’re talking about laprats here, not lapbrats. They’re both annoying, but unfortunately children can’t be banned from public areas. The thread is amusing me, however.
