Do you get annoyed if someone misgenders your dog?!

[DrMeredithGrey2023]

I was talking to a woman at a village family event the other day, and called her dog 'she'

Her facial expression instantly changed, and she quite curtly said 'um, he' and then the vibe changed.

Can't say it offends me in the slightest if someone calls my dog a girl, to the point that I'm even sure I'd bother to correct them in the situation we were in - chances are I'll never see her again 🤣

Does it bother you?

No! I had to do a bit of this on Friday. There was a family that we vaguely know who have the most beautiful Golden retriever, I'd never seen it until Friday and they only speak a little English. The fluff meant that I couldn't 'see' if the dog was male or female, and it had a name like Goldie, so I just had to refer to the dog as they!

We have a silly neighbour who keeps laughing at our male dog, saying we have put him in a pink collar. His collar is red, literally pillar box red (and he looks very handsome in it, he is a black lab). This man says he is a boy, so should be in a blue collar 🙄and when I walk him past he said oh you poor thing still in that silly pink collar. I've given up correcting him and saying the collar is red, but I'm not offended.

But if it's not wearing lipstick how else can you tell?

🤣

I don't get offended, but never know whether to say anything or not. People are likely to think you've taken offence when you haven't if you "correct" them, this is probably what happened to the OP.

No, life’s too short to get irritated over nothing.

You’re super clever being the 20th person to point that out, and after the OP has acknowledged her unforgivable transgression three times………………

I wouldn't be annoyed at that. I get annoyed, in fact really pissed off when people ask if my dogs are other breeds or mixed breed when it's very obvious what breed they are 🙄🙄

People always assume ours are female despite them wearing superhero collars and drinking whiskey.

Op, we aren’t laughing at you. We are laughing with you. It was a funny slip of the tongue, that’s all. You acknowledged your mistake, don’t worry.

The woman was crazy. I would go out of my way to keep saying it wrong just to annoy her.

MN annoys me with this 'picking apart' of the uses of words when everyone knows very well what the OP meant. You aren't going to be recruited by MI5 because you spotted a mistake a forum member makes. You are no more clever than those people who didn't make the correction, those people just simply took the meaning as the OP intended.

Mine's on a pink lead but has a penis. I'm not bothered about misgendering but my dog is a they/them and he gets most annoyed if the wrong pronouns are used.

My Border terrier looked soo like a male for some reason. Even I saw it. When people heard her name-Mabel-they thought I'd got it wrong when I named her, rather than that she was a bitch!

When I meet a dog who wants to say hello, I say "hello happy dog, what's your name?" And generally the owner will say This is Sally, or Toby, and now I know. Or if the dog's name isn't a clear indicator, I can remain neutral without looking awkward.

I may have overthought potential interactions with dog owners. I'm an overthinker and it helps to be prepared.

I really don't care and I don't bother correcting anyone. Because my dog is a girl i tend to refer to other dogs as girls, just force of habit. She is a border terrier and although I think she's absolutely beautiful she can sometimes look like a grumpy old man gurning so I let them off. She wears either a red or a blue harness so that's not really much help either. But no, doesn't bother me at all.

I have a GSD so everyone says he automatically. I just say her name is X, and then they change to tell me how gorgeous she is. Wins all around lol.

I refer to dogs as ‘he’ in the first instance of meetingi if it isn’t obvious, I know very old fashioned.

my beautiful pale lab boy was often called ‘she’ as he was very pretty. My back lab gorgeous girl is often called ‘he’ as she has a little ferocious butch expression all the time! They don’t care, so why should I.

I think if you're not a dog owner you don't think much about it. I don't know anything about dog breeds or sizes. I do know that generally males cock a leg to pee and females squat, so I would guess at sex if I'd seen a dog do that. But honestly, dogs don't look either 'masculine' or 'feminine' to me in any human sense. If they do, it's because I'm attributing human gender norms to an animal - big eyes (like Disney princesses, must be female), long hair (must be female), tall (must be male) etc.

I find it really weird when I see dogs with bows on their heads. I mean, gender norms are all sorts of messed up anyway, but imposing one on your dog?

Some they/them on a reel that popped up on my feed was moaning about how "everyone says they don't like pronouns but woe betide us if we misgender a Karen's dog" (or similar misogynistic rubbish).
Given how often professional women are assumed to be male (especially with a less feminine first name or like me with a doctorate) we have not yet spontaneously combusted (and neither will my male cat).
I've never heard of anyone being frosty about mislabelling their dog. Maybe if you called it a cat?

Someone asked me last night "What's his name?". "Ella." 😂

I do correct people who get it wrong, only because I can't bring myself to say the wrong thing eg conversation goes
Stranger: 'What's his name?'

Me: 'She's a girl, her name is Susie'
It doesn't offend me though, or the dog! The next comment is usually 'oh she's so pretty!'

Oooh, this happened to me, and I can totally see why it annoyed the woman!

I asked a woman if her dogs were poodles/poodle mixes, they were not. She was quite surprised when I realised my mistake and got the correct breed on my second guess.

Her dogs had been cut in a way that I hadn't realised wasn't just a poodle cut.

Haha my dogs are not a breed you can mistake for another 🤣 with poodley things in all shapes, sizes and mixes I wouldn't try and guess at their breed 😂 xx

@WoofWoofBeachLife

They were Portuguese water dogs. They were absolutely stunning!

It happens all the time so doesn't really bother me and I often get it wrong myself which isn't so bad when fluffy or low to ground but feel daft when can clearly see it's not the sex I've just said.

A dog trainer used to always refer to our male dog as she and say his name slightly wrong even after corrected, which i found amusing as know I'd be the same with so many dogs.

i don’t, but have met plenty who do. They react much in the same way as parents when you misgender a baby.

i once overheard a conversation at the vets about a dog who had a collar on, the owner was somehow put out that it o ly had a “boys” collar, and was saying she’d be much happier when she got home and got her pink collar on. Because she was a “girly” dog or some such. I was like wtaf? How do you know if a dog is “girly” anyway? They like watching soaps and sniffing flowers?