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‘Don’t Touch My Dog!’
This morning on my walk, I felt as if I’d been slapped.
Early mornings I love to greet the regular walkers on my route. I also wave at people in their cars, and many of them wave back with big smiles. Those smiles mean a lot to me as we navigate appropriate behavior during this wretched virus time.
Anyway, many of the walkers have dogs. Sometimes I pet them, at other times the dogs are too busy sniffing in the grass to give me the time of day. There is one fellow who walks one of the most beautiful German shepherds that I’ve ever seen. He has the gentlest temperament: you have to show most dogs your hand before you scratch them to avoid startling them. Somehow Gunner senses when you are reaching to scratch his head and just soaks up all the affection.
This morning I was going to scratch his ears since he actually turned toward me. Suddenly his owner, a nice fellow most of the time, said, oh no, don’t touch him! Not as long as this virus is with us.
Naturally, I quickly pulled back, startled by his reaction. I have mixed feelings about his comment. I don’t own, can’t own a dog due to my husband’s sensitivity to dog dander. And I know his reaction wasn’t personal since he has always been friendly in the past.
My reaction was two-fold. First, I would never jeopardize the safety of any dog or his owner. Most of the data is inconclusive about whether animals can catch or pass on the virus. And a childish part of me felt hurt. But my reaction had a second aspect: our lives are changing and will continue to be altered by this mysterious virus in surprising and disappointing ways.
I’m so tired of all of it. How long will we feel we need to take special precautions regarding this illness? How will our relationships and intimacy be affected by those we care about and love? Will restrictions become even more limiting, or will they gradually be relaxed? Will people get tired of restricting their lives in so many ways and start to act normally? Will it matter if the virus morphs into a less insidious illness so that people might feel less threatened? Are we simply all afraid of dying?
Will life ever seem normal again?
For now, I will resign myself to refraining from getting my “dog fixes.”
It makes me sad.
Published in General
I think you are spot on with your comment, @poindexter. I made the comment earlier that we’re all struggling. Although I imagine doing something snarky next time I see him, that’s not my nature. I’ll likely smile and greet him when we pass each other.
Well, to quote a maxim from Northern England, or maybe Wales, “there’s nowt so queer as folk.” Although it was borrowed a couple of decades ago and applied to the title of a British TV show about gay men, the original saying has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and just means, basically, “people are odd.”
I expect this guy was trying to protect his dog (maybe he has a lonely life and Gunner is the light of it. . .) and perhaps he came across a little more harshly than he meant to. Please don’t take it too much to heart.
I live in an area where people are pretty relaxed about this whole business, but even I got shouted at the other day by a person who’s made it her business to make sure that people are following the directional signs in the local Giant Eagle. I grabbed a package of coffee, no kidding it was about 18″ down from the end of the “wrong way” aisle–I barely had to step into it–when I heard the stentorian admonition: “YERE GOIN’ THE WRONG WAY!!”
“Quite all right, Madam,” I responded in my best BBC Received Pronunication (thank you, Lord, for small favors). “I’m part of a Black Lives Matter protest. That’s what we do–go the wrong way down the supermarket aisles.”
She stomped off.
Wouldn’t suggest trying that with the dog owner, but it might come in handy sometime.
PS: Did I meet Gunner? I met a couple of dogs while we were out walking.
I go with “no habla inglés.”
Ah. But see. This is because you don’t have Auntie Pat in your life (97 next month, may she live forever). If you did, you’d recognize that the concept of “no habla inglés” is a non-starter from the get go, because, really, anyone with any sense of self-preservation hablas plenty of inglés when it comes right down to it. And that all you have to do is raise your voice, and shout the same thing louder and louder, until the benighted ex-colonial gets the drift. Which they will, eventually, trust me.
Does Auntie Pat add vowels to the end of words? I’ve heard that too.
You may run afoul of someone sufficiently multilingual.
So THAT’S why some of my supervisors seem extra stupid lately…
I once told a friend of mine, a science reporter for the San Diego paper, about how back in the old days when the antibiotics we had were pretty limited, we would sometimes get a patient who had totally resistant bacteria. We would do a stool culture and send it for sensitivity to antibiotics, which the lab would hate and complain about. Our Chief of Surgery, however, was convinced that bacteria which had acquired resistance, had lost other capability and would be replaced by “wild” strain of organisms. As a result, we would sometimes, in desperation, take stool from a new admission who had never been on any antibiotic, mix it in a malted milkshake and give it to the sick patient to drink or by an NG tube if they were not eating. He was astounded and wrote an article about it. It always worked and ten years later, the “probiotics” appeared. Now, we are seeing research on the role of intestinal “flora” on a number of diseases. Even using tapeworms on autoimmune conditions.
I assisted at that procedure when I saw nursing practice at an equine hospital. The team in the hospital called it transfaunation but my lecturer reading my case study called it a sh1tshake😀
Happened to me once. I just made a U turn with my basket (or do you say carriage in PA) and said OK now?. Then I just walked backward to the item I wanted.
Hugh, that is SO sweet! Almost like the real thing! What a cutie!
I am cracking up! Wish I could have been there when you reamed her out! I go the wrong way in the aisles sometimes, especially when Jerry is pushing the cart somewhere else in the store. For pete’s sake, I don’t take up that much space. I expect I’ll get in trouble soon enough. No, you didn’t meet Gunner. He tends to walk earlier than you and I walked. But you’d have loved him, too. And yes, I’m now feeling bad about the owner–I think his name is Marty–because I suspect he surprised himself. We’ll be okay.
It’s really annoying. If for no other reason that each supermarket aisle has two sides (left and right, east and west, whatever.) So if you’re following the “arrows,” you have to try and cover both sides at once.
I’ve done the “walking backwards” trick myself, too. Always reminds me of my mother:
Funny you posted this. My dog, Rosie, has had a bowel ailment since before the weekend. (Don’t ask about the yucky cleanups.) I have wondered if it were coronavirus related. I still don’t know. The medication the vet has prescribed has not really helped.
I do notice the same dogs walking every morning at the same time I walk my dog. We keep distance, not so much for the dogs but for the humans. I don’t wear a mask when I walk Rosie. It’s best to social distance.
I’m so sorry that Rosie isn’t feeling well. I hope she’s well and frisky soon, @manny!
My Lily goes to doggie daycare once a week and does the rough and tumble with 20+ dogs all day long. We are still alive (so far). The owners socially distance for dropoff and pickup.
I just got back from walking Belle – our deerhound. I have seen some of the research on cat and dog transfer of Corona, but can’t say I am very worried. We tend to see the same people and dogs on our walks – as I have said before, we tend to name the people by the dogs they walk; as in “Look, there goes Nick’s mom”. I guess I am Belle’s dad.
I appreciate it when people ask if they can pet Belle. It isn’t because of any fear of infection, but she is a tall dog (standing at rest, she can scan the top of the dining room table) and fairly big at 105 lbs or so. My fear is that she might figure that she has finally found a human who will allow her to jump up on them for a really good lick.
I’m afraid that she would knock down most people (@bossmongo excepted) Asking first gives me a chance to make sure she knows the rules are still in effect. The best thing is a sniff of the back of the wrist.
My basset hound, Sophie, came to us from a basset rescue shelter and we got her because she does not ,like other dogs. Really does not like them. She is the first basset I have ever had that is aggressive. She loves us and I have theorized that she fears going back to the shelter. She is never more than 5 feet from me. Anyway, the Covid panic has worked out OK for us because we can’t go to CA to see our grandchildren anyway. Usually, when we would go we would have a dog sitter so our previous basset, Juliet, never was boarded. Sophie, however will not let the sitter into the house so we would have to board her. Thus far, CA remains locked down by the idiot Governor so we stay home with Sophie.
No problem with neighbors wanting to pet her. She is quite clear about that. Looks innocent, doesn’t she.
Her favorite spot lately. That’s the desk I am sitting at.
maybe they are related….
I always ask permission to pet a dog. It is the right thing to do. And people have warned me off. Some of those little dogs are mean!
The smaller the dog the bigger the inferiority complex…..
A couple of times I have sat down at the desk and not noticed her there. Haven’t kicked her but we were both startled.
LOL, I got good laugh out of that clip. Thanks.
I have a positive update to share this morning. On my walk I encountered Gunner and his owner, who proceeded to make a joke about the thunderstorm we had last night. Clearly he was trying to break the ice and I truly appreciated it. So we’re good.
I also asked a couple of friends that I also encountered if they were okay with my petting their dogs, and they assured me they were fine with it (and I don’t think they said it to placate me). They have the only other cute dogs that I love to pet, so I will let other dogs and their owners alone.
I’m feeling much better! But I’ll still be interested in seeing whatever updated information comes out regarding pets and owners.
My previous basset, Juliet, was a love sponge and loved everybody. Useless, like most bassets, as a watch dog. In Tucson, the Home Depot and other non-food stores were very good about letting dogs in and people were always wanting to pet her, which was fine.
She died of cancer last October and I still miss her.
They can hold such a big place in our hearts.