Judged By Dog

I'm getting kind of sick of dog owners on the Internet and their bragging about how much their dogs mean to them.  Well, it's not that their dogs mean so much - I'm glad they get enjoyment from their pets.  It's that they can't seem to testify to their dog love without putting people down.  That seems like an odd thing to do on social media, since it's built around your friendships with people.

An example is this graphic.  I have no idea if I have the rights to publish this here, but it's been around Facebook a few times so I figure no one will mind.

Et tu, Bill?  Well, as is so often the case with quote images, it turns out this actually comes from a parody account, not Murray himself.

But real or not, I've seen that same sentiment from a lot of people, and I find it kind of threatening, since I'm definitely not a dog person.  Of course, lots of people aren't dog people, since there are plenty of cat people out there.  Sure, some people may claim to be in each camp, but how many actually have both animals?  Dogs and cats, living together - mass hysteria.

I'm not a dog person, but that doesn't mean that I don't like dogs.  I like dogs in the same way that I like tigers.  I admire them, but I don't want to be confined to a closed space with them.  Of course by that definition, almost everyone likes dogs, which is why I suspect that the non-Bill Murray person who said this meant you have to love being around dogs and living with dogs to qualify.

As for dogs being such reliable arbiters of trust, have you noticed how random dog behaviour is?  They don't even have consistent opinions of their owners, never mind a reliable judgement of strangers. One of the reasons I'm so uneasy around dogs is that their reactions to me have always been unpredictable.  I don't know if they're going to bark their head off (which must mean I'm not trustworthy) slobber all over me (meaning I've passed the test) or take no notice (I guess means I'm okay but boring.)  And the fact that the enthusiastic welcome is about as sudden and violent as the complete rejection, further makes me wonder how reliable judges they are.

So please, dog owners, open yourself to the idea that your dogs are not psychic, and that non-dog people may have some merit. And celebrity quotes are nearly always fake, stop spreading them around.