I am so, so sorry. Nothing but hugs, Jane.
With Armed Forces Day last weekend and Memorial Day this weekend, we have back to back Suck The Military’s Dick weekends. MLB will doubtlessly dress its players like Patriotic Barbie this weekend and we can look forward to our Facebook feeds being filled with such original and deep insights as “Freedom Isn’t Free”.
To all of the hyper-patriots, go pound sand. If you were one of those cheering on the insurrection, you don’t get to pump your chest and act like you’re proud of America because you wanted fascism. If you ignore the dead on Jan 6, you don’t get to obsess and whine about Benghazi in perpetuity. If you don’t give a fuck about black kids getting killed by police you don’t get to get your panties twisted about black athletes kneeling during the anthem.
I don’t want to be called stupid again but I need to vent. Knew this guy for years around town, one day in April he finds me at the bus stop, acts interested and next thing you know, I’m being used. Hes homeless, doesn’t have steady employment, so he got to live with me, eat my food, have sex, and at first he actually had me buying him cigarettes. Yep. I came to my senses soon enough but…wow. Women don’t expect men to court them anymore, they seem to want to switch roles here.
One of our near-neighbors (about a quarter-mile away) has some kind of outdoor kennel arrangement which evidently contains several moronic, bored dogs who go into volleys of barking several times a day over nothing (which includes spotting me outdoors in the distance). I’m not sure how the people who live much closer to him tolerate those mutts.
Then there’s the black German shepherd mix named Sophie who lives across the street. I met her when attempting to converse with her owners while I was checking out the house we eventually bought. She was quite friendly while I was over there. Now that I live across the street she always barks at me on sight, whether or not I’m walking our own dog. She is totally unimpressed that I call her by name.
People who let their dogs run loose and/or lunge at passersby are jerks.
I’m an accidental jerk. We’ve got a 100-pound mixed breed who’s still very puppyish at 18 months. He’s super-friendly, but at that size he’s still pretty intimidating.
So anyway, while loading up the car last week I left the gate open and my wife, not knowing the gate was open, let Rover (not his real name) out into the yard. Rover breezed past me without so much as a by-your-leave and galloped straight across the street to make friends with our elderly neighbor Fred (also not his real name). I though Fred might have a cardiac when he looked up to see this 100-pound dog running straight for him. Fortunately he’s met Rover on-leash before and was not only a good sport about greeting him but even grabbed his collar so I could retrieve him.
The lesson: We’ve taught him “Stay,” but we really need to train him on “Stop” for when he’s already in motion.
A minor chuckle - I know people are worried about privacy, but I’m pretty sure no one is going to track down who you, not-Rover or not-Fred are based on this anecdote if you had used real names.
One of my coworkers actually reads SDMB occasionally and my dog has a pretty distinctive name. 
I have a neighbour with a great dane who barks and lunges. I once saw him draw blood from an encounter—it was only a warning nip to an idiotic but friendly man who tried to pet him, and only a drop, but I am terrified of this dog. I have seen the dog knock his owner (a stringy middle-aged guy) on his ass, and I have seen the owner whack him as discipline. Not a good combination.
The owner never, ever, ever apologizes or says anything. He hates us because I dared to call the city on him (after the biting incident). Not the poor dog’s fault that he has a terrible owner, but man, I hate them both.
That’s terrifying. Every great dane I’ve known has been a sweetheart – I can’t imagine how badly one would have to be treated to be so mean.
I do feel for the poor dog, even as he terrifies me. He doesn’t seem mean so much as a dog who would really rather not have strange men in his line of sight, and reacts aggressively to keep people away. I just wish I could tell the dog that I’m not going to bother him, or even better that his owner would exhibit a modicum of awareness and / or compassion.
So, after 11 days, hubs finally gave up and allowed me to take him to the urgent care clinic. He’s positive for COVID but his lungs sound clear. My attitude has turned around. I’m still not happy, but I’ve stopped looking at park model homes that we could throw up in the back yard.
I’m glad to hear this (well, not that he has COVID…).
Best of luck to you both.
Glad he’s getting professional care. At least if his lungs take a turn for the worst you’ll know to drag him to a hospital and (
) he’s more likely to go.
Be good to yourself too-rest, nutrition, diversion (as in hang out here a lot).
So, will you go with “I told you so”, or “I informed you thusly”?
Or “diversion” as in “Get out of the house, go have a life!”
LOL!!! Right now I’m just going with dumbass. Once he’s recovered, he will get the “I told you so’s” forever.
Point of interest, one of the reasons he denied it was COVID until the positive test is that he never lost his sense of taste or smell. He ticked all of the other boxes, though.
Well at least you acknowledge your dogs behavior and I’m sure making every effort to train it. These other people don’t even make a token effort to correct their dogs. At least make me think you are on my side and not the dog’s.
I was walking my daughter’s rather large Ridgeback* last year in her city. She’s a great and well trained dog but she’s not mine and I’m not at all confident that she would respond to me in a pinch. As I turned the corner of her street a pitbull/mix dog came roaring out of it’s house. The owners were unloading their car and had a moment of inattention. I was thinking ‘Oh fuck’ and the owners were screaming at the dog. It raced across the street straight at us. My daughters dog just looked at it. And about halfway across the street it came to the conclusion that this was probably a bad idea and stopped. Owners retrieved the dog and apologized profusely. Daughter’s dog got lots of pets and ‘good girls’ from me.
*they’re a super protective breed as well as being BIG.
And what would May be without Memorial Day memes like these popping up on social media, including this year on Linked In:
Why not just post it: while you fat lazy entitled slobs are enjoying your hot dog and beer, remember if it weren’t for almost 300,000 of our troops dying in a war 80 friggin’ years ago, you’d all be speaking German.
We GET IT. Memorial Day services will be all over the news. We just don’t need your lecture. Can I have a scoop of potato salad now?
That gave me an idea, I just might make my own meme
A picture of World War Two soldiers with the caption “They fought for Democracy” (or maybe “They died for Democracy”
Over
A picture of January 6th insurrectionists with the caption “They fought against it” (Or maybe “They tried to kill it”)
I’ll figure it out tomorrow, but it’ll be a good counter to that BS.