To think we need to find a way to infiltrate the dog cult?

[dogsdilemma]

I'll start by saying I favour cats but love all animals. I don't want a dog just now because I find them tying. Would date someone who had one because, contrary to what I'm about to say, I like them and it wouldn't be my responsibility.

But the obsession drives me nuts. It seems no one can own a dog in a normal way anymore. As in I have a dog, the dog is a pet not a person, dogs aren't god-like solve all creatures, it's fine if not everyone loves my dog as much as me - like I am with my cat.

Someone gets a puppy and I go to their house - all conversation is about the puppy and I'm expected to fuss like they've just given birth. I can't say 'ah I've actually come to catch up with my friend, not have endless chat about the puppy's sleep schedule and whether or not it shat in the house today' because their dogs are their babies, so I should treat them as such.

Instagram accounts for dogs - captions written like 'my mum took me for a walk today, I had so much fun'. Only mildly cringy but wtf? Are you a springer spaniel mother or Katie from uni?

I do an exercise class and the owner has a puppy. She brings him along so he's not home alone. At least 15 minutes of the session I've paid for is always taken up by the hive mind fussing the puppy. Everyone loves dogs so no one minds apparently - except I DO mind. If I say this though I'm gonna be the dick.

I'm OLD, and every other profile says 'must love dogs'. I do love them but don't want one, and if I say this it's like I've confessed to being Hitler in a past life. Cue messages trying to change my mind, as though not being obsessed with dogs is a moral failure. I love my cat but wouldn't rule out someone who doesn't feel the same?

The final nail in the coffin. I've been dating someone new. Had an absolute shitter of a week so far - nothing he can help with, not really serious, just work stuff. His response is 15 pictures of his dog being cute to cheer me up. He's just trying to be nice but I do not get it. I wouldn't expect pictures of my cat to cheer anyone up except, maybe, me. I'm being narky but I actually found it so so irritating and cannot even fake enthusiasm to reply. If I say 'awwww cute, thank you' he'll continue with this approach. If I say 'cute but why would your dog cheer me up ha' I'm gonna look like a knob.

I have no problem with others doing what they want to do but recently it is infiltrating everything. I know there are worse issues but ffs it's so annoying - what is this dog cult and how to we stop it? Can I tell this lovely man I'm dating that I actually have little interest in his dog?!?!?

And you must be misinterpreting the way YOU feel for the way other people feel. It won't be the same. But read the study for yourself. It also highlights what a positive effect these relationships have, it's not a bad thing. Really can't understand your determination to deny it, and get upset by people's relationships with their pets. It's odd.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/pets-are-a-childs-best-friend-not-their-siblings

With respect, I doubt you understand psychology better than me, as I have a degree in clinical psychology. It does indeed sound as though you haven't read them properly, but feel free to quote parts you haven't understood and I will help you out.

You said a child's brain shows...
But it is a self report study, not dissimilar to talking to a Teddy bear.

The second one clearly states that the fundamental response was only to the child.

I doubt your word tbh because it took seconds to find both statements you made were not supported.

A region known to be important to bond formation — the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (SNi/VTA) — was activated only in response to images of a participant’s own child. The fusiform gyrus, which is involved in facial recognition and other visual processing functions, actually showed greater response to own-dog images than own-child images

wasthe finding. So only shows humans look at dogs in communication. The pair bonding part was only for their child.

A person I know got her dog period pads when she was on heat. Posted photos of it. Batshit.

There are some people on this thread who genuinely me worried for their mental health and/or critical thinking skills, it's disturbing.

It would be the fault of the person supervising the child who should have stopped them playing with matches. If a child falls in the river whose fault is it?

Look, if you leave a gun or a knife or open bleach or a dog that bites in the area of children and harm comes to them, you’re going to at be responsible for that.

As for the river? Not even remotely comparable.

If you leave a knife or bleach open in your own property and someone else allows their kid to wander onto your property unsupervised and the kid hurts itself, you aren’t responsible for that. It may have been unwise, but the kid shouldn’t have been there. That’s what allowing your kid to approach an unknown dog is like.

If the dog approaches the kid, the dog owner is at fault. If the kid approaches the dog, and the owner of the dog has no reasonable means or time to remove the dog from the child, the parent of the kid is at fault.

Nobody is blaming the child, it’s the parent who is responsible.

You’re comparing apples and oranges. I’m not talking about a kid wondering into someone’s house, I’m talking about dogs being in open spaces, as were my examples. Stop trying to shift the point of the analogy.

But why should people need to avoid somewhere INTENDED for people, where they might have always enjoys the food, because now there are dogs there and they (very reaonably according to the last however many years when dogs were not allowed in such establishments) don't want there to be? I'm sorry but there is no reason for dogs to be in places they have traditionally never been allowed before. All my life it's been 'guide dogs only'. Perfect, didn't need changing. Like it or not, in cities it seems like the majority of dogs aren't well trained or even trained at all. Regardless I don't want them around me and it's become infinitely harder to avoid them as if they have more rights than I do. That's wrong.

I’m really not - you just don’t seem able to understand an analogy. Parents have a responsibility to keep their children safe. Dog owners have a responsibility to control their dogs - nobody is denying that.

But a child who is allowed to approach a strange dog and pick it up / poke it / jump on its head, against the owner’s advice, and gets bitten because of that, has been failed by its parent, not the dog owner.

For clarity, I’m talking about public spaces like open parks, not in a restaurant or shop. I have no desire for dogs to be allowed in those spaces.

Children should be taught how to behave around animals, however dog owners also need to behave responsibly in public places.

To be fair, most of the dogs I see in pubs, restaurants etc are well behaved. But if eg Sainsburys doesn’t allow them (unhygienic?) then why should other places? I’m not saying dogs are unhygienic but it would be interesting to see how many eg pubs/restaurants which allow dogs have incidents of dog hair. Also, let’s be honest, these establishments aren’t allowing dogs because they like them, they’re doing it mostly because it makes financial sense.

Yeah no, I’m 28 and I feel the same way about the pets as children craze as OP does. She has stated numerous times that she just doesn’t get it, that she’d like her relationships not to be impacted by people’s pets, and people continue to misunderstand her and accuse her of hating dogs and animals in general. I myself like dogs and cats despite being deathly allergic to both, but I don’t want to hear about someone’s pets 24/7, and I also would be furious if a class I paid for was being taken up by the teachers literal pet. All you’re doing is proving OP’s point, that you “pet parent” people can’t comprehend the difference between everything not needing to revolve around your pets and hatred.

I think a lot of people have dogs instead of babies - whether that’s people who are too old to want babies, can’t have babies, too young to have babies, not at right life stage/ don’t have partner to have babies … then the dog becomes a baby and tbh I do find it annoying as well.

My mum won’t leave her dog for more than two hours which makes doing most stuff with her a real PITA especially now that I have young kids and it would be nice to sometimes have a family day out at the zoo or a meal at a restaurant rather than a pub! Sat opposite young couple on train the other day who spent 1 hour 20 min journey discussing doggy day care arrangements for their dog including what it would eat, photos they would get, pick up and drop off times etc. exactly like they were talking about a baby.

I do think dogs run peoples lives now in a way they definitely wouldn’t have 20 years ago! And I can’t tell if that’s because we have become better dog owners (walking them more, looking after them better) or because we have become psychos about it and are humanising them way too much!

" It turns out that many of the areas of the brain that are involved in emotion and reward processing (such as the amygdala, the medial orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsal putamen) were activated when mothers viewed pictures of their own children or the family dog, but not when they viewed photos of unfamiliar dogs and children."

You are clutching at straws and I have no idea why. Most of us use emotional intelligence when we feel differently than someone else and accept that we are all different but you don't seem to have that ability. You are being so hostile towards people, even using the F word and threatening to report someone for talking about their grief, you have no right. It really is a disgusting attitude and I hope you are not raising your children that way.

It's not working well if you are liable to become deeply depressed about the death of an animal with a short life span.

You can tell him and he can decide to not continue dating. Dogs are family - if you said it about my kids or my dogs, I’d think it was normal and wouldn’t judge you, but I’d know you weren’t the right person for me. I hate the phrase ‘dogs are dogs’. No one things otherwise, but usually that phrase comes out to justify mistreating them in some way. They have the intelligence and emotional range of small children - if you can’t see the personhood in animals, I’d find someone else.

It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

100%.

You have to wonder what has happened to some posters in their lives that they begrudge the love and affection that most people have for animals.

I absolutely LOVE cats and we are currently moving heaven and earth to try and appear optimally attractive to a number of rehoming charities in order to be considered to adopt one, after our last old chap died. And yet ... no cat would be considered on a par with my two boys. If there came a situation where for some reason we had to choose between the cat and my immediate family, it would be a no-brainer. This is now the sort of opinion that gets you unfriended! 🙄This country has gone bloody mad.

As regards ubiquitous dogs, I am SO over this. Thank feck I don't work outside the house because I couldn't be doing with a dog-friendly office. If your dog is so needy it can't cope with being on its own at home during the day, get a dog sitter, or work from home, or just don't have a dog!! I know, it's an infringement of your human rights... I have a very sensitive sense of smell and I'm not particularly keen on dog-smells. Some smell more doggy than others. My idea of living hell would be having to work in an open office alongside someone's stinky Lab, for instance.

I'm also very over dogs in pubs but I have to accept that boat sailed long ago. I think round here (rural, quite wealthy area) it's a lost cause. It's not so much that I object to dogs in pubs - one or two seem reasonable, it's a rural area, you take your dog for a walk and then call in at the pub - but that now, almost everyone HAS a dog (thank you lockdown) and it's never just one or two, is it? If we go into a pub during a family walk, you are literally having to step over dogs just to get to and from your table. I don't really want to straddle a massive dog who's lying across the access route while juggling drinks. My son has autism and has a patchy-at-best response to dogs, so when that's heightened, pubs and cafes are very risky places for us to be. That's sad.

I also loathe the way 'designer' cat and dogs are bought at vast sums and paraded on social media, etc. Going out of your way to buy an expensive pet from a horrible unregulated industry that overbreeds and treats animals terribly is not the act of an animal-lover, IMO.

I completely agree OP. The dog cult round here is bordering on obsession and whilst I don’t mind dogs at all I am not a dog lover and wouldn’t get one. I have two cats instead.

I was at the pub with some ‘new’ friends recently that I met through the kids’ school. One of the guys was talking about his dog ad nauseam, to which I listened politely and made the required ‘aahhh’ sounds. However when I mentioned my cats he had free rein (apparently) to slag off the entire species, rant about how much he hates them, how evil cats are, making ‘urgh’ faces etc.. I didn’t rise to it and just said I personally preferred cats as pets and wouldn’t get a dog. The faces of the people standing around me were a combination of confused / askance / outraged / offended. But it was absolutely fine a second ago to slag off cats in front of me? It is very tedious.

'Thank feck I don't work outside the house because I couldn't be doing with a dog-friendly office. If your dog is so needy it can't cope with being on its own at home during the day, get a dog sitter, or work from home, or just don't have a dog!!'

I really like dogs but I DO NOT want to have to share an office with one. I read that thread about the dog friendly office last week and thought that I was losing my mind. Unless you work on a farm or in a vet's office or similar, then it's just outrageous to expect to bring your pet (or baby, or child, or partner) to work