In Defence of People Afraid of Dogs
"I don't trust people who don't like dogs."
"I don't like people who don't like dogs."
"I prefer dogs to people."
Caveat lector/disclaimer/insert whatever here, because reasons:
I am the owner of a large dog. He is a beautiful companion, and has kept me safe for ten years. He is like the other dogs I have had in my life, a source of the purest form of love, and has kept me going when I didn't have much strength to do so. I will likely have dogs around me until I cease to exist. I love him to pieces. Gods help you if you hurt him. None of what I'm about to say makes this any less true.
I am white.
Right. Now that's out of the way...
I get it, you have an adorkable gremlin like creature on four legs, who is supposed to make noises that resemble barking, howling, whining, but actually sound like nothing of the sort. Observe:
To be entirely honest with you, I think I could do with a good scream, and Floki the pug seems to be extremely good at that. He's hilarious. Floki has a significant following on Instagram, as have many other dogs on there. There are accounts where it's just a random dog that amassed a large following for being funny. There are accounts where a rescue dog scored massively and found the best forever home after being a stray. There are accounts for dogs for every positive slant you can think of, and then there are those who focus on rescue and re-homing. The ones who fund raise for pulling dogs out of terrible situations, lifesaving surgery, fostering, the list is endless. They usually also actively campaign to ban "backyard breeders", or "greeders", as they are sometimes called. These terms are all available in more detail via your preferred search engine.
There are often specialist rescues that take in dogs with serious health issues such as brachycephaly and hydrocephalus, often accompanied by a cleft palate that requires surgery to survive, and combinations thereof. Think pugs, french bulldogs, english bulldogs etc. Sometimes they survive, sometimes they live for a little while before going, but regardless of that, they experience love and care for however long they're alive if they have been lucky enough to find themselves in the hands of a good rescue.
Shitbags create new dog breeds based on what people find cute, make tweaks to existing ones, and "play with things" in terms of aesthetics often to the detriment of the dog's long term health. If it's cute, they can sell it, and ask an obscene amount of money for it. Dogs didn't end up flat faced, overly wrinkly, bald, or variations of blue, merle, harlequin, and whatever the breed attribute of the now, is, all by themselves. We did that. Moreover we did that because people lose their minds and will part with comical amounts of money for a dog these breeders know full well won't live past their sixth birthday, all because it's cute.
Pleas from vets, shelters/rescues, animal rights activists, celebs in support of those things, charities etc, go completely ignored. If there is money to be made, and something or someone to exploit, people will exploit it to tiny pieces.
Whilst breeders are merrily doing that, there are people trying to pick up the lives they throw away like broken glass. It's the breeders like this who are likely to be involved with creating dogs like XL bullies, purely for money, and zero interest in animal welfare, or the consequences of them being sold out to irresponsible monsters. They even perform cesarean sections on animals that can't birth safely. It is utterly brutal.
They don't care what happens to the dogs. If one of them is born ill, or with something that will cost them money to fix, they will just dump them. Dumping can mean road side dumping, dumping them at a shelter and walking away, or just letting them go. There are other worse things, and I will not be going into detail on this occasion.
Whenever you see a post about dog cruelty, you can be sure that multiples of people will pop up absolutely incandescent with rage, and say variations of the above, along with how much they want to mangle the people who did it (or words to that effect). I was guilty of the same myself in the past, and said those things because I was ignorant.
...which brings me to the point (are you still here?!) because this isn't just about a dislike of dogs. Dislike of dogs can happen for non violent reasons; mild allergies, and OCD fuelled hygiene (hello fellow neuroweirdo) reasons, being two of them. Serious allergies to dogs or indeed other animals that result in anaphylaxis go in the fear box, because breathing is sort of important, and not doing it tends to be a bit FINAL.
If you dislike something, it's probably because it was an annoyance. If you hate something, that has serious emotion attached to it, something significant rooted deep inside you. Then there is fear. Fear is a different story.
Fear is involuntary. Hate shadows fear. It's always lurking because you end up hating something you're afraid of. Hate on its own can give some people power, they can use it in ways that treat the pain of whatever they're feeling. For others it festers and they try to keep it pushed down until they explode later. Both of these things might eventually lead to self destructive behaviours as a further complication, but when fear comes into it, all bets are off. People crumble.
Imagine the worst thing that could come for you, something that would make you slide down a wall with a low moan, and shrink as far into the floor as you could just so you could get away from whatever it was. Then imagine it, or it and several more, coming for you, but it's not just you. Your entire family is dotted around the ruins of your home and just as terrified as you, your own mother screaming herself to insanity because she's being made to watch as hungry dogs trained to kill, tear her children apart. Please sit and think about that for a few minutes.
Dogs and ACAB
Below is a photo of dogs being used by cops to attack protesters.
Take a look at the police dogs in the photo above. German Shepherds are still used as K9 units in both the police, and the military. If they're the best dog in the world for you, please resist the urge to say, "not all German Shepherds!" They are incredibly intelligent animals, and can shred someone on command.
This piece from Professor Tyler Parry via The African American Intellectual Society, is very much worth a read, and here is an excerpt:
Batka was generally good-natured in his interactions with white people, he demonstrated a noticeable, albeit peculiar, inclination to attack people of African descent. Gary first noticed this behavior when a Black maintenance worker attempted to enter his residence, but Batka hurled himself at the gate “foaming at the mouth, in a paroxysm of hatred.” Gary tried to restrain the animal from lunging toward the visitor, noticing he never manifested such rage at unfamiliar visitors. It was apparent, however, that such reactions were deeply racialized, as White Dog displayed a prejudice against one racial group. White visitors to his residence were warmly greeted, but Black strangers, especially men, prompted fits of rage.
But my dog is only little!
(I despair)
It doesn't matter if your dog is only little, they can be terrifying regardless. When you're out walking your best mate in open green areas and they don't leave your side, it's one of the best feelings ever. My own dog is always tethered to me because he's quite exuberant and wants to say hello to everyone. He is also huge. He walks well, but because he's 50% bull-breed (a legal one I might add), I am aware that his exuberance might be unwelcome. Truthfully most of the problematic dogs I encounter, are smaller and make an unholy amount of noise the moment they see any other dog. There's often lunging, and a lot of snarling. They're almost always attached to one of those extendable leads that the owner has no control over. I recently lost my shit (I was admittedly having a really hideous day) at the owner of a french bulldog whose little darling was ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD, whilst still attached to her via one of those bloody leads. I asked her if she was trying to get her dog killed, because all it would have taken, was a car coming over the bridge for her arm to be pulled out of her torso, the dog to fly through the air probably dying in the process, and a wreck of a car and driver trying to swerve after the impact.
Absolutely none of that had occurred to her. She was extremely defensive, and didn't even try to hide her annoyance. Too many small dog owners have the same attitude, and that needs to change. You have zero control of your dog on an extendable lead. Please for the love of sanity, stop using them.
Folks with dogs of ANY size who let them run about off-lead with zero recall, are a menace to EVERYONE, including other dogs. "oh but they just want to play!" is a shit excuse and you shouldn't have a dog. Sort yourselves out.
But only big dogs, right? No. Not only big dogs. Your tiny little darlings can nip and torment and cause a lot of damage too. My own dog is anxious around smaller ones, because he associates them with a lot of noise and aggression. If you can have empathy for a scared dog who is trying to hide behind you because another dog is being a weapons grade shitmachine and its owner doesn't give a fuck, then surely you can recognise the same reaction in a human being?
If you still don't get it, dogs have historically been used, and are still used by nasty people to kill, and torture people from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Yes, before someone chimes in with "B-B-B-BUT IT HAPPENED/HAPPENS TO WHITE PEOPLE TOO!!!," of course it bloody does, but being white won't have been the qualifier. Look at the history of queer people, and people with disabilities who weren't properly cared for, for example. Both of those groups of white people were/are subject to intense abuse and fatality, and there's probably evidence of them using dogs to do it, in number or otherwise.
The point is that people from ethnically diverse backgrounds have every right not to want to be around the dogs we know and love, because their personal experiences, and generational trauma very much involve terrorism via dogs. Before you use one of the sentences from the top this indefatigable wall of text (yes I know, too many words) please consider not speaking/typing/whatever-your-chosen-medium-is, it out loud. Survivors of violence inflicted in this way can't process that your dog might be a beautiful gentle soul, or how many times they've saved your life, because when you're terrified, you can't even think straight. It is not a personal attack from them to you, it is a very much justified fear response– not just a dislike. That is the important distinction.
People who have been attacked by dogs probably don't want to be around them, especially if the dogs are big enough to cause serious harm, or death. It is not unreasonable to be afraid, and it does not make a person with an aversion to dogs, untrustworthy. If you are lucky enough to have been around dogs that are lovely company and haven't bitten you, you enjoy being around them, and have never had a negative canine experience in your life, then good for you.
The 2023 XL bully ban in the UK caused a huge row, with responsible owners of them being understandably upset that they would have to jump through several hoops to keep their dogs, because too many shitbags were fatally irresponsible with theirs. XL bullies are beautiful animals, but if you don't train them properly you're in trouble. As with any other large domesticated dog, if you don't train and treat them well you're going to have a major problem, especially if you don't exercise them enough.
It also doesn't help that these dogs fall into the hands of people looking to protect things they ought not have (drug hoards as an example). Of course they also guard more legal things such as cars, property, and people–you get the idea. Training a large dog or two to guard something and maul anyone that isn't you, will sooner or later result in a fatality because dogs have this habit of getting out, and will see everything and everyone as a threat. Couple that with the fact that there are fuckwits who only keep the aforementioned dogs for guarding purposes and couldn't actually give two shits about the dog, will happily just open a door and let them go, or leave them to die. If they let them go, they do this knowing that they will likely end up dead, and seriously injure or kill someone as a result. They do not care. If they are caught with a dangerous dog, they will be slapped with a fine and the dog euthanised. It is cheaper, and carries less criminality than being caught with an illegal firearm. This is a major problem.
There have been many XL bully escapes/attacks since the ban, and you can bet a good number of those will have been turfed out by people who have no use for them anymore. We can also add this idiot to the mix because he was fucking stupid and didn't want to pay for his dog's surgery.
This has been quite long enough already, and if you're still reading, THANK YOU. I am not asking you to stop loving your dog, nor am I asking you to stop leaving comments on photos and clips of other people's dogs. I'm asking you to stop saying things similar to the phrases at the beginning of this admittedly long wall of text, because some people have an incredibly justified fear of dogs, and they should not be dismissed.