Why I’m Not Really a Dog Person (Maybe)

On my way home from work today, I decided to stop by one of the local megachurches and use their walking trail. The church is surrounded by wide fields, and I spent a good portion of my walk being entertained by an unfortunate couple chasing their large dog though one of the bare fields, still damp from yesterday’s rain.

I watched the chase until I got to the part of the trail where I would have had to crane my neck too much to continue watching the dog get the best of two humans. That would have been rude.

Still, it was another good reminder of why I’m not really a dog person.

It feels sort of shameful to reveal that— most people love the furry, four-legged beasts, I know. Saying “I don’t like dogs” is almost like saying, “I don’t like babies.”

I get that dogs are a special part of many people’s lives— they even save lives, like the Saint Bernards, saving travelers in the Alps. If you love dogs, I’m happy for you… but I’m just not that into them.

I’ve tried. One time, I went to my friend Rebecca’s house. She had told me about a new dog she’d just adopted. The dog (some kind of boxer) was chained behind her house and I went to pet the new doggie, who sat quietly and watched me, then…

WOOF! The dog sprang forward, mouth open, as I sprang backwards, both of us propelled by pure instinct. Fortunately, the dog’s chain was short enough to save me from getting bitten, but Rebecca’s landlord was not so lucky. After the boxer bite the landlord, Rebecca decided it was time to sell the dog after only owning him a few weeks.

“I’m advertising him as a guard dog,” Rebecca said. “I already had one phone call. Lady asked if he’s good with children. I said no.” Eventually, Rebecca did find a buyer for the boxer, and I hope he found a good home.

I like go biking and take walks and when I do so in unfamiliar places, I usually seem to meet up with dogs. One time I was staying with friends in Rawlins, Wyoming. Rawlins looks exactly like you might expect: a raw desert-y type of place.

Early in the morning I took a walk just to stretch my legs. I called my mother on my phone, and suddenly, a huge Rottweiler came walking toward me.

“Oh no! A big dog!” I screamed into the phone and hung up.

The Rottweiler turned out to be harmless, and after a while I realized I should probably call Mom back and let her know I was okay.

It’s not hard to trace the start of my mild cynophobia (fear of dogs). At the tender age of eleven, I begin to deliver newspapers on my bicycle. Newspaper carriers and dogs, like postal workers and dogs, have a long-standing animosity. We invade their territory on a regular basis. They guard their turf with furious barking. It’s an old battle.

Happily, most of the vicious dogs were kept inside, barking like crazy behind the door. Only once did I actually get bitten. The dog that bite me was a Jack Russell, which is a little ignoble, I’ll admit. I was peddling away on my bicycle, and he got his sharp little fangs into my ankle.

The Jack Russell’s owners caught their dog, and told me he’d had all his shots. My parents called the doctor’s office (I was thirteen) and they advised that I should get a tetanus shot since I hadn’t had one once since first grade. The dog bite happened on Saturday and that meant a three-hour wait in the emergency room.

It was my first visit to the ER, and it looked nothing like I expected. No one looked sick or wounded except for one guy with his arm in a sling. At least we got to fill out an official-looking paper titled “Pennsylvania State Animal Bite Report”.

I got my shot and we went back home. Now I try to avoid getting bit by a dog for fear I might need to wait in the ER for hours again, because I have no clue when I last had a tetanus shot.

Last summer I was walking with two of my nieces when we met a big, growling dog on the street. This was no yipping Jack Russell, this was a mean-looking dog that was clearly dangerous. My nieces (who like dogs) were scared, so I told them to duck behind me. “GO HOME!” I yelled at the dog in my loudest voice. “GO HOME!” I saw the owner in his yard and I yelled at him, too, “GET YOUR DOG!”

Yelling is very effective with dogs. The dog backed away from us, and the owner came and dragged off his dog by the collar, mumbling under his breath.

“Boy,” my niece told her mother later on, “I never heard Aunt Susan yell before! I won’t want her to yell at me.”

Many of my family members like dogs. My sister and her husband raise Welsh Corgis. They are nice dogs, I’ll admit. Friendly and not too big. And my brother had a black lab named Ebony who was a good dog.

“Aunt Susan,” my niece Angie asked me a while back. “What’s your favorite kind of dog?”

“Um, I don’t really have one,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right. You like cats“, said Angie, saying the words “cats” in the same tone of voice adults usually reserve for talking about the political party they don’t like.

I do like cats, although I’ve had some bad experiences with cats too. Like the time I adopted a kitten only to have the neighbor’s dogs kill my kitten less than a week after I got him. “Nature red in tooth and claw”, I guess.

Ever since COVID began, puppies have been selling like crazy in this area. I’m not sure you can declare a true national crisis if lots of people are looking for another mouth to feed, but I’m sure there’s many happy people who love their new dogs.

Not all cultures like dogs. I recently read a book about a young woman who moved from Sudan to the United States, and was startled to discover her host family kept a dog in the house. In many Muslim countries, dogs are considered unclean.

Last week, my co-worker showed me a picture of one of her dogs standing inside her dishwasher.

Maybe someday I’ll change my mind and become a pet owner. But for now, patting a (friendly) dog on the head once in a while is good enough for me. And occasionally watching a dog take his owners on a run in a muddy field.

Photos taken by Joanne Snyder