Pet Peeves?
My Pet Peeves are not with pets at all. They are mostly with the humans that are
allegedly supposed to care for their pets…. and somehow fall woefully short of
demonstrating common sense when given the opportunity. I share these real-life stories with you so
that I am not the only one who is eating TUMS as if they are lifesavers.
The award for “AYKM:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” goes to last week’s candidate. There I am schlepping across the parking lot
to get into a building and there is a vehicle parked near an area where the
traffic flow is pretty consistent. I didn’t
see a person sitting in a car. What I DID
see was a little yorkie that was actually balancing on the open car window
ledge and – as dogs do before they make a leap – he seemed to be sizing-up the
distance between where he was standing and the ground. All I could think is: If that dog jumps and gets run over in front
of me, honestly, I will Throw. Right. Up. Here. On the sidewalk. So I called out: “No-no little dog; go back in the car!” And then I hear the owner: “I’m right here.” He was sitting in the front seat, I just
could not see him. The problem with that
scenario is he clearly does not have a dog intuition. When you can see the dog’s gears turning in
his head, plotting his next daring escape from captivity, you just DON’T take
risks like that. You just DON’T. I called out to the man: “Sorry.
I didn’t see you sitting there!”
So here I am thinking I tried to do someone a favor so their dog won’t
get squashed like a pancake, and I end up feeling guilty for saying
anything. The man thought he was in
control. The dog and I know
otherwise. AYKM Award.
Maybe it’s because I am mid-life that I feel edgy and want
to yell at people. Or maybe, just maybe,
some people really NEED to be yelled at.
This weekend I went to a beautiful outdoor farm market & craft venue
in the Finger Lakes. It is comprised of
about 20 sheds with crafters and vendors set up in a charming little village of
shops. When I say “sheds,” what I mean
is: SHEDS. The ones that were bigger than sheds where
you park your lawnmower were really only sheds that were hooked together with a
common side door. They are cute, yet
they are small. Frankly, I almost had my
“moment” when this woman walked in with her labradoodle on one leash, and Scottish
terrier on the other leash. Lady,
please, there is not enough space for PEOPLE in here, much less dogs. And of course, instead of being able to shop
in peace, I have to listen to people fussing over her dogs. And whose ego was that feeding? Further, where were my dogs? Home napping on the couch, as God
intended.
The woman who took my mental space one step farther to the
edge was the one who was walking around with a Newfoundland. If you are not a dog person, and can’t place
what that looks like, just picture a dog that is the size of an two year old
black bear cub, and then add a few (50) extra pounds. One of my dear friends owns a Newfoundland
and in order to “fill the dog up” at supper, they add a 10 ounce package of
frozen/thawed vegetables. Gracious. I can’t eat ten ounces of vegetables in a
week. The dog eats it once a night! So, I get it, that people don’t want to lock
their dogs in their hotel room – it’s part of the nation-wide campaign: “No Dogs Left-Behind.” But do you really need to bring the dog into a crowd of people to take up
space?! And let me ask, not that people “matter,”
but what about people who are deathly afraid, or even deathly allergic to
dogs? Don’t they have a RIGHT to shop in
the outdoors without having their space invaded? I’m just sayin’ because really you’d have to
look long and hard to find someone who loves ALL dogs as much as I do – but I
just think there’s a time you need to leave them home. And let’s talk about kids for a minute….
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| Note: "Make it easy FOR YOU" |
What about these outdoor fall craft shows …. And the mommies
that think they need to bring Cranky Baby in his stroller and push him through
the craft tents? What does that poor kid
have to look at: The buns walking in
front of him! Is that fair to the kid? NO. If
I had to look at redneck buns in front of me at eye level, I’d be cranky
too! Years ago when I was a teenager,
and dinosaurs roamed the earth, there were these paid helpers we called “baby
sitters.” No it wasn’t a
television. It was, egads, an actual
person that you paid cold hard cash to sit with your kid for a few hours so
that you could get a break from the relentlessness of parenting. It was a win-win for both child and parent. But today’s human parent, and today’s doggie
parent, oftentimes don’t take that opportunity – instead they just bring about
the extension of their own persona so they can get complimented. After all, it’s all about them anyways. AYKM.
Lastly, a shout out to teenagers. AYKM.
Teens can be some of the nicest people.
But then again, they are people so they have a dark side too…. It is an
insensitive, make-you-pay for your last interface with them that didn’t go
their way. Case in point: I pulled in my driveway after work and
noticed the duck in the pasture next door was sitting in exactly the same place he
was eight hours ago when I left for work.
I was in my good work clothes and cute shoes but walked over to the edge
of the fence nonetheless to assess the duck situation. He barely opened an eye at me as I spoke to
him. I went into the barn and found the
young woman that I had met a week ago when she was screaming her lungs out at
her little sister. On that day, I had
told her: “My experience from teaching
high school a while ago was that if you have to scream like that, you already lost the war.” But I am silly to think that she would like
advice from a person who has already seen that movie and learned the hard
way. So there I stood before her again
asking what was up with the duck. She
said, “I don’t know, maybe it got stepped on or kicked.” Lovely.
A broken duck and we plan to just leave it there to freeze over
night. I appealed to her sense of
kindness: “Can we bring it into the barn
for the night so at least it can die where it is warmer?” She said, “Sure. We can put it in the empty stall. I will turn off the electric fence and you can
go get the duck.” The irony of that didn’t
hit me until I was standing next to horse shit, in the mud, talking to the duck
and picking it up … while still in my good work clothes and cute shoes. The duck made no protest and quite
uncharacteristically of ducks, didn’t even poop on my shoes when I picked it up
and brought it inside the barn. But the
fact that a teenager who was IN barn clothes working somehow got ME to go out
in the mud said a lot. Something was all
ducked-up with that situation. AYKM
times a million.
Lastly: My most
significant pet peeve. If I see someone
driving a car with a dog hanging its head out the window, I know that I have
found an escaped village idiot. Dogs are
like kids in some respects: they will do
what feels good without thinking of consequences. Their welfare relies on the
people that own them. In this case, the consequences, namely, eye injuries…. could
be sustained by any piece of debris that is hitting a dog’s eye at 60 miles per
hour. I really don’t care about that
person’s veterinary bills. I am solely
concerned for the dog that will sustain an excruciating injury – have you ever
scratched your cornea before? I
accidentally got something in my eye once and the pain of even a slight scratch
to the cornea made me put my head on my steering wheel and WAIL out loud three
minutes after the drugstore clerk said, “Oh, the pain medicine for that isn’t
in stock. But they have it at our Other
Store (eight miles down the road).” I
believe I said something like: “You’ve
got to be kidding me. In a rural
community where getting ‘stuff’ in your eye could be part of regular farm life
and you don’t have the pain medication for this….” That’s all I remember that I can repeat in
polite company. Based on that experience plus a shred of common
sense I implore dog owners everywhere to get the dog’s head back in the car
where it belongs. That I have to say
this at all makes me again say Are You
Kidding Me?!
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