Doggies

I am not huge on dogs.  I don't hate them.  I don't even dislike them.  I have also met many lovely and memorable dogs in my time.  I have never owned one and likely never will.  They require a lot of care, they're filthy and they eat garbage and feces as well as having rather disgusting ways of expressing affection.  But sometimes they are so friendly and adorable and just downright interesting that I cannot write them off.

Definitely I am more of a cat person than a dog person though I really don't care if I never have another cat.  I did enjoy my three years with Smokey, the long hair Coon Cat cross who was my room mate in the early eighties.  She was more of a buddy than a pet, very affectionate and in her feline way very wise.  I learned a lot from Smokey, especially how to give comfort and support to people when they are upset.  She did not sit on my lap, rather she sat next to me watching and waiting with me and supporting me with her presence and friendship as I struggled through my stuff.

 I'm not really a pet person I suppose.  Cats are low maintenance: think of a plant that purrs.  They also bury their own shit though I have also heard that they can be trained to use a toilet and that dogs can be trained to use a litter box.  I think the only reason this doesn't seem to happen much is people's lack of imagination or initiative.  Still it really does baffle me that people are allowed to keep animals in their small units in the urban core where they walk around peeing on everything and worse should their human companion be forgetful or an ignorant douchebag or both.

I often encounter dogs when I'm walking in the forest of Pacific Spirit Park.  They are usually friendly and often loveable and I enjoy stopping to pet and play with them while chatting with their friendly owners whom I do not try to pet.  I have on occasion been harassed and threatened by aggressive off leash dogs in the forest but this thank heavens is a rare occurrence.  The very worst was three years ago when I had to fend off a giant vicious cur with a tree branch.

There is a bench with a beautiful view of the forest that I love to stop and sit on.  It is at a junction of three trails and there are often people stopping to read the public map for directions.  Often I offer assistance given that I know this forest extremely well.  I also sometimes pet and chat with their dogs.  One today, an Australian shepherd, was particularly nice, and actually seemed like just the sort of dog I might like to have if I was going to have a dog at all.  Then a small group came by with a Chihuahua  and you can guess what happened.  The gentle friendly and average size Australian shepherd said "Crikey, let's make friends."  And the Chihuahua, being a small dog with an attitude very similar to that of many small humans (think Napoleon) said "It ain't necessarily gonna be that way" and got rather snarly and very disrespectful towards the friendly shepherd.  The Australian shepherd, after lots of time for patient sniffing won him over then picked up a huge branch some three times his length and dropped it on the ground in front of the Chihuahua as an offering of friendship.  It was all quite adorable.