I like dogs like I like toddlers. It’s fun to hang out with other people’s for a while, but ultimately they’re annoying, loud, and make a mess. I feel like in the past 10 years or so, dog owners have become increasingly convinced that everyone thinks their slobbering, untrained mutt is god’s gift to everyone, and expects everyone to love it unconditionally. Dogs in restaurants. Dogs in stores when you go shopping. “Oh it’s so funny that your dog is jumping on me and getting it’s dirty paws all over me while it tries to sniff my crotch.” “Oh oops! Your dog ate my food off the counter, fucking again. Guess that’s my fault because in this house nothing is safe from the coddled fucking dog.” “Hey man can you watch the dog? It’s really easy, not like it pisses all over the floor and knocks the trash over or anything. We have to leave the house for 2 hours and it has anxiety/depression/borderline personality disorder and he’s a wittle special boy who needs constant attention.”
I’m just tired of it. Nobody gives a goddamn about your stupid dog. Stop bringing your animal to restaurants, it’s disgusting and inconsiderate. It’s not your child, it’s a dog. Dog people have made me hate dogs.
You’re absolutely right, and that’s an excellent thing to do. But it wouldn’t change the sidewalks becoming bathrooms for dogs. When people live in the big city, and the dog needs to go out, they’re not walking to the park, they’re going outside 5 m from the door dog is going to do its business and they’re going right back inside. Doubly so in winter.
Walking around high density residential complexes in Manhattan is just a really terrible experience. Especially once winter ends
What I did when I had a dog was that I trained it to only use patches of grass or trees as places to go to the bathroom, and she kept quite well to this, barring the very rare emergency. Luckily, the city where I live has plenty of greenery interspersed with the regular streetscape, so this was not a challenge to enforce with the dog in the city center.