People are stupid

Cthulhu7

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#1
So I'm hanging out at the coffee shop with Cthulhu, and it starts getting busy. Cthulhu likes to growl to get attention, i haven't quite trained that out of him. Anyways this guy walks past and says that aggressive dogs aren't allowed. I say he's not aggressive, and the guy says he's barked at everyone who walked by. For the record, he didn't bark once.

It's been bugging me for the last twenty minutes. I feel like he just insulted my first born. Do you guys ever run into people who just don't get dogs?
 
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#2
All the time.

I can't count the times someone's been cooing all over Tallulah, talking about how sweet and cute she is, and friendly and what a wonderful dog she is, and then, when they ask me what kind of dog she is, and I tell them she's an American Pit Bull Terrier, they recoil in horror and tell me all pitbulls are monsters and should be put down.
 

Kayota

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#4
Oh often. Take the dog groomer who picked my nervous dog up and held her down in the middle of the playgroup while she struggled to escape. I was very angry. I wish my dog were bigger so people didn't think it was okay to bother her constantly...
 

Teal

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#5
Ha, ALL the time. Zealand (middle dog in my signature) is a talker. He "woo woo"s and grumble growls and all sorts of other cute noises for attention, and I've had folks tell me he's being aggressive *rolls eyes*

One of my favourites was an old woman who wanted to pet my Saluki, but wouldn't approach because Ruger (first dog in my signature) was also there. In the middle of her telling me she was just SURE Ruger would 'sense her fear' and attack her, a regular patron of the coffee shop who knows my dogs walked right up, grabbed Ruger's cheeks, and kissed his nose (she hadn't heard any of the conversation either, she had just pulled up and gotten out of her vehicle). I began laughing, and the woman with Ruger was like.. "What?!" and when I told her the other woman wouldn't approach Bukra (my Saluki) because Ruger was there... we BOTH just went into a fit of laughter. It WAS pretty rude of us, I suppose.. but I had spent about 7 minutes explaining that Ruger was a Service Dog AND Therapy dog and was very sweet to the fearful woman, but she was convinced her fear was going to trigger him to attack her.

I can't believe people sometimes!
 

puppydog

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#6
Riley grumbles and growls about everything. Amazing how I've never got the aggressive thing because she is small. Apparently small dogs can't be aggressive?
 

Paige

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#7
Yupp. People cross the street all the time to avoid us and he is a well mannered Border Collie. You'd think I had a fire breathing dragon at the end of my leash.
 
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#8
My god that's awful. Austin is a big pit bull city, they're everywhere. And I've never seen an aggressive one.
It's invariably a halfback or some other variety of immigrant to the area -- you know, the kind that moves in and then proceeds to tell everyone "that's not how we do it at home." I'm not a native here, and there are a lot of reasons I would love to leave this area, but that's just not cool, even with me. They're also the ones who try to get BSL and other BS passed.

This area is old school APBT. That's part of what made it worse on her, she's used to being adored, lol. Guys will stop their trucks in the road to ask me about her and we've had quite a few conversations with some whose families go back with the breed for generations. They love it when she starts her banshee imitations, lol.

Of course, when Tallulah's in full cry I can totally understand someone who doesn't have a good understanding of dogs standing back! But not when she's being a quiet little wigglebutt affection sponge. :(
 

stardogs

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#9
TBH I'd be pretty ticked if there was a dog growling at everyone at a coffee shop; ill-behaved dogs are one of the reasons well-behaved dogs are allowed fewer and fewer places. Sure, you know that he doesn't mean any harm, but can you really blame others for being worried?!
 

Kayota

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#11
Personally I'm a lot more worried about a dog growling than a dog barking... I mean I'd know better through body language but my first instinct would be to freeze and look the dog over before proceeding to pet it or what have you. A barking dog on the other hand, depending on the tone of its bark and body language, if the owner didn't mind me approaching I wouldn't hesitate if the bark were a friendly one.
 
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#12
The OP said they were working on Cthulu's unfortunate choice of vocalizing. Hard to work on it if you don't take him out where there's some stimulus. As long as he's working on it and he's vigilant . . .

Kharma makes low rumbles that aren't growls, just part of her language. Tallulah also has some in her vocabulary, so granted, I'm less likely to get bent over it.

What's bothering me is it doesn't seem to be a problem that dude LIED.
 

Cthulhu7

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#13
Thankfully all the people there gave me looks like u should just ignore him. We'd been there for an hour, and plenty of people had said hi to Cthulhu. When it got busy i made the choice to leave. And i should mention that a low rumble is a better way to describe it. He doesn't bare his teeth or anything. Gee does jump though, so I'm working in that.
 

Lyzelle

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#16
Zander purrs, too. I figured it's just because he's a Sibe and he talks anyway, but he does a lot of chewbacca and kitty impressions when he's restless, wanting attention, or just happy and excited. Better than screaming like most Sibes do, but to a non-savvy dog person he sounds like he's growling.

As far as stupid people, I've had quite a few. Neighbor, for example, in regards to Macie when she was a pup. Maybe 7 months old? But she's a mastiff...so she was already the size of a full grown lab! Lol.

"That's a big dog."
"Yeah, she's only 7 months or so, still a pup."
"What kind of dog is that?"
"Macie? She's an English Mastiff."
"Isn't that the kind of dog that kills people?"
"....No?" (imagine the surprise and shock, here)
"No, I'm pretty sure that's the kind of dog that kills people".
And she just walks away....

As for Zander, I mostly get comments about how he is a wolf hybrid and he's going to turn on me one day. Because, you know, Sibes are only black and white with blue eyes. Since he's a copper, with gold eyes, he obviously can't be a Siberian Husky. So they tell me to get rid of him, let him loose in the wild where he belongs, put him down, etc.
 

Red.Apricot

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#19
My dad's puppy Zoey is going through (what we hope is) a phase where she barks at everything. It's not an aggressive or angry bark, she's just excited about things like there being leaves on trees, or my mom getting home from work, or Elsie running around with a toy, or a fly in the house, or a stranger coming up to say hi.

We're working on it, but it's embarrassing in the mean time. People in public do not appreciate a weird 30lb mutant ant-eater yelling at them in dog-speak, for some reason. Even though I'm on their side (that the dog shouldn't be barking) it still is kind of irritating when they tell you that your dog is aggressive, when she really isn't.
 

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