Stranger Dogs
Wet Dogs
This morning, as I was waiting for the traffic light to change, I saw a very cute dog who was also waiting for the light. So, as per usual, I said hello and waved, but then had to fight an overwhelming urge to get down on my knees and start playing with it. It was a VERY wet dog. It nosed my leg, which I was fine with, but then the human attached to its leash pulled it back and the light changed. I think the next step was a full on head rub that would have left my hand wet AND dirty.
Behaviour
It got me thinking about my interactions with dogs. I fully believe that dogs (I actually can’t think of an animal that I WOULDN’T put there) are better living beings than humans. Better in the way that there really is no such thing as an evil dog – unless, of course, they are inflicted by disease or mankind. Thus, I feel the desire to acknowledge a dog’s presence much more than a human’s.
Whenever I see a dog, I either wink, wave, say hello, or a combination of the three. Depending on the situation, the next step is a good scratch behind the ear. If there is a human attached to the dog and they are walking, I usually stop at hello. If I’m in a situation where the dog is next to me for any extended amount of time, I will give the human an “is the dog friendly?” look, judge their reaction, then either move on the the ear scratch or leave it alone. If the dog is by itself (i.e. tied up), I first say hello, judge it’s reaction, then proceed to the next step which is showing my hand palm down. I again judge the reaction and move onto either 1) saying goodbye and leaving it alone, 2) giving it a pat/ear rub, or 3) full-on conversation, possibly playing with it, and a good body pat.
Interactions
Back in Montreal, there was a fenced-in backyard on my way to the bus stop that housed a very friendly dog. Every morning I passed by, I’d look to see if it was there. Most days it was, it would run over the the fence, get into the play bow with its tail all a-waggin’, and I’d mock play with the dog through the fence. One day, after our little play was over, I looked up and saw a human staring directly at me from inside the house. I waved, got no response, and kept on walking. I saw the dog occasionally afterwards, but not as often.
When I was in college, there was a smoking hot girl (pun intended) who was often at the same bus stop as me. I never got up the urge to actually talk to her until one day I when was walking home. She was walking down the sidewalk in my direction – it was the perfect outside-of-the-bus interaction opportunity! I started thinking what I was going to say, got my confidence up, and then said hello to her dog and kept on walking. Wait. Something went wrong here. To this day, I can’t figure out what I was thinking. I didn’t see her after that for a couple years and age was unkind. Today, I find myself wondering what her dog’s up to.
My last dog, Shaina, was a HUGE character. We got her at nine months, but she only weighed two pounds. The store wasn’t sure if she was a poodle or a bichon because her hair was so straight – turns out she was just a malnourished poodle and her hair went curly within the first month. Anyway, we were obviously nervous about leaving her alone when she weighed two pounds so we used to (we did this once) stack some old milk crates about five feet high and let her stay in the bathroom. We got home, and she was happily wagging her tail in the living room. What? I went to the bathroom, and the milk crates were still there. She either jumped over a five foot wall, scaled a five foot wall, or knocked down a five foot wall and reconstructed it before we got home. The same dog fell OFF the stairs. Not down the stairs, but completely off the side of our kitchen-to-basement steps (10). I heard the THUNK, ran downstairs, there she was: smiling, wagging her tail, but looking utterly confused about what transpired.
There’s a series of pictures from when I was about a year old. The first one is me on the floor, playing with stamps, while my first dog, Bofur, is in the left of the frame. The next one, Bofur is obscuring the view of me. The third is an accidental portrait of me looking pleased, and Bofur with a stamp on his head.
The Point is…
I freak out if a stranger touches me, but I smile when a stranger dog licks my hand.
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