My Dear Hard Drive

This here is my dog. Cute, isn’t he? Looks very friendly and cuddly, doesn’t he? Most of the time, that is exactly what he is too. He is the most loving and friendly dog with adults and over 7-year olds or so, which would be all that he should be fine with in his every day life. He is not at all used to young children though, especially toddlers… And that is where we constantly get into trouble.

Now, this would not be any kind of a problem if people would just listen to me… But here’s what happened today - and this is not an isolated incident.

Me and the dog were sitting outside at a café minding our own business, when a father carrying about a 2 year old son came to us. Without warning or questions, he shoved his kid into Primo’s face. I told him to be careful, as my dog isn’t used to kids, but the father smiled with the most heart warming smile and said “that’s fine.” Now I repeated myself, putting my hand out in the gesture, that to most people say “stop, stay away, don’t come close” and told him again, that my dog is not good with kids, and that he might bark. “That’s fine”, said the man, and pushed his kid closer, while Primo was escaping further down under the table. “He’s not used to kids” I said the third time, and he repeated, for the third time, that it was fine, and moved closer following the dog towards the depth of the table. I heard Primo letting out a low growl as he was pressing himself against my leg, so I informed the man, who I wasn’t sure heard it from the general noise. I can’t recall what he said, but my guess would be “that’s fine”. I expected that the announcement that the dog is growling, a generally understood message of aggression, would make him go away but no.

I was trying to speak calmly to the father, and reason with him and make him understand that the situation was not “fine”, because I didn’t want to scare the kid by starting screaming myself. Obviously that is what I should have done, because at that point Primo was already freaking out, and let out a huge German Sheppard size bark, that is supposed to say: “Get the fuck away from me before I bite your freaking head off!” The kid got it. He certainly got it. He started screaming, and I could make out the words “he will bite me”. All I could say was “that was what I meant” and look at him apolitically. “That’s fine” he said again, and continued to the kid “That’s fine, he’s just not used to kids…” (Like it would matter to a two year old WHY the big bad dog barked at him.) “Oh, you heard me after all?!” I thought to myself, but just clenched my teeth and tried to smile for as long as he went away. What I wanted to say, was that “No, you stupid idiot, it’s not FINE. It’s not even in the same ball park as FINE. If it would have happened, that my dog would have bitten your kid that you shoved in his face regardless of my warnings, it would have been my dogs fault and he would have ended up dead in this FINE situation. It is not FINE, because your kid will now grow up thinking that dogs hate him, when in fact it is nothing but their uncertain movement that makes dogs nervous.”

Dogs react to toddlers differently to other people. Toddlers are almost without an exception scared of dogs at some level, and therefore they approach with hesitation, even when they do it themselves. That makes the dog assume, that the kid is up to no good, and he wants to HARM ME. That is when they can react unexpectedly, by barking or by biting, and neither one is a good outcome.

What I have found, is that this is so very often a situation with men with their sons. For some reason, I’ve noticed that little boys are more scared of dogs than little girls are, maybe because it’s a male thing to see animals as beasts instead of cuddly toys, or possibly because their dads keep shoving them into faces of strange dogs. Is it some sort of a male ego thing, that you have to force your toddler to pat a dog he’s terrified off? “No kid of mine is scared of a spaniel!” And at the same time the twit makes things worse… And then they have to get out of the situation with a bit of an embarrassed look on their faces as they must admit that their kid was, after all, afraid of a spaniel. (Mothers usually ask if it is fine for the kid to pat the dog and when I tell them “probably not a good idea” they move away, which is all I’m asking.)

I was already thinking of getting a fucking pepper spray to protect my dog and their kids from stupid fathers with a point to prove, but I think I’ll just have to find that tone of voice that says: “I am fucking not kidding, man, keep your kid away from my dog or I will bite you.”