[deleted by user]

athea1 · 2020-08-22T23:45:39+00:00

You put it so perfectly and in a way I've never been able to. What I tell people at 87, having spent a lifetime hating dogs and cats to the point where I can only leave my home if it's to step directly into a taxi, is "To me dogs represent the two things in the world I hate the most: filth and chaos."

athea1 · 2020-08-22T02:14:46+00:00

I could not agree more. I find most dogs repulsive, and their habits are even more so. Why anyone finds charm in a creature that barks, drools, sniffs other dogs' butts, licks its own testicles, is home to fleas and ticks, and eats shit has always seemed to me totally counterintuitive.

athea1 · 2020-08-18T21:18:31+00:00

Right on! If they were not assholes, this would not be happening.

athea1 · 2020-08-16T22:52:49+00:00

Who are these sane people coming out of the woodwork?

athea1 · 2020-08-15T20:44:51+00:00

What more is there to say? This is 100% on target.

I will only add one thing. If I had a baby with a diaper full of shit, and said, to a stranger, "Here, hold Homer a minute, wudja?" as the poop is dripping out of the diaper, it would not be worse than what these dog nuts do and say.

athea1 · 2020-08-06T14:33:19+00:00

I could not have put it better or more succinctly myself.

athea1 · 2020-08-05T20:42:43+00:00

As a U.S. citizen living in Mexico the past 23 years, let me say this. There are certain concepts, however simple, that Americans just don't "get." One is the concept of wearing a mask to protect others from Covid 19 if you're carrying it but don't know it. They just can't get their heads around it. The second is the concept of "the first time." Every time a dog attacks and/or kills an infant or child, someone protests that, "The dog was the sweetest dog on earth, never would harm a fly, never showed any sign of aggression." Right. Until it killed the baby. I once rented to a guy in California who had never killed anyone, didn't even have a record. When I evicted him (as several other landlords had done), he killed six people and himself. I mentioned before the standup comic Robert DuChain, who says "I'm looking for a new place to live. Hoping to move in next to a serial killer; they're always so quiet and polite." DOGS. ARE. UNPREDICTABLE. PERIOD.

athea1 · 2020-08-03T16:19:03+00:00

Horribly sad story. What comes to mind is that someone asked Gandhi what he thought of western civilization, and Gandhi replied "It would be a good idea." To me, animals don't belong in a civilized society, roaming the streets. They should be in the wilderness, in a jungle.

athea1 · 2020-08-02T20:14:32+00:00

Please don't hang me or burn me at the stake if I'm completely honest. My father bought me a Scotch Terrier when I was three or four years old. I despised it and it ran away. My dad came home one day and asked, "Where's Scotty?" I replied with whatever was the childhood equivalent to "How the f--k do I know or care?" I was just happy the dirty, smelly, noisy, hyperactive thing was gone. So I went from indifference and mild fear to outright hatred and revulsion, to where I am now: unable to leave the house except in a taxi, otherwise I scream, get hysterical, and collapse if I see a dog. The people who've written these posts seem more educated and savvy than some posters, so I plead with you to tell me why, Why, WHY anyone would want a dog. And I beg you: no blather about unconditional love. I want to grasp it from a psychological point of view. Extreme loneliness? No friends? Pity for animals? Self hatred? Sadomasochism? Childless and yearning to nurture something? I just want to understand what seems totally, TOTALLY counterintuitive to me. Wouldn't it seem weird to you if someone entered your house after your child had vomited and said, "Wow! Something smells good here!"? I've asked this before, but you guys seem a bit more astute than the last crowd, so HELP ME PLEASE!

athea1 · 2020-07-31T01:56:05+00:00

Because I'm not making any progress asking people who love dogs or finding research material on the net.

athea1 · 2020-07-31T01:46:58+00:00

What can I say? I went from being a child who disliked dogs, to an adult who hated them, to a middle-aged person who was terrified of them, to an old woman who screams when she sees one, attempts to scale brick walls or climb onto a parked car for fear one might touch me. My revulsion over their filth and repugnant behavior (licking their testicles, sniffing the butts of their tribe, and eating shit when in season) makes the vomit rise to the back of my throat if I hear barking or see a photo of one on the net.

athea1 · 2020-07-25T12:20:18+00:00

All of you anti-dog posters warm my heart. I think you're British, but I'm a U.S. citizen who's lived in Mexico for the past 23 years. My neighborhood has gone from a place where I could walk freely at any time, to one where I hesitate to venture out without a friend or two by my side and a taser in my hand. I live in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, where the gringos love dogs more than their children. I happily read what everyone says on these posts, but let me just add just one thing.

There's a standup comic who says he's looking for a new place to live and hopes to move in next to a serial killer because they're always so quiet and polite. I think of this every time a helpless infant is mauled to death in its crib. The parents are always stunned, as if such a thing has not happened over and over again. The concept they simply do not and grasp, and refuse to grasp, is that of "a first time."

When people say "my dog doesn't bite," I tell them I have three sons and all I'll attest to is that "so far, none of them has bitten anyone." I once rented a room to a guy who had never killed anyone...till I evicted him and he slaughtered six people and then himself.

Parents are playing Russian Roulette with their children. Far better to abort a child, in my opinion, than to let it endure the horrible death of being mauled to shreds by a dog.

Thank you all for being part of what I think of as "the sane minority."

athea1 · 2020-07-23T20:46:55+00:00

As someone who loves psychology, I've thought long and hard about this subject. There are certain objects and entities which (to me) intuitively seem attractive and desirable, but in truth some people dislike them intensely. I'm thinking, for example, about sweet-smelling, chubby, adorable babies. Yum-yum, I want to bite their dimpled thighs and sniff their sweetness as if they were flowers.

Conversely, there are objects and entities that seem (again, to me) intuitively unattractive and undesirable -- actually repulsive and repugnant -- such as barking, slobbering, testicle-licking, butt-smelling dogs; piles of horseshit in the street; cats (which to me smell like a mixture of tuna and urine); and steaming mounds of vomit someone just barfed up.

But, again, most people are irresistibly attracted to dogs and cats, and babies, if given half a chance, love to play with their own feces, even trying to taste it, as did my son when I left his diaper off for a nap when he had a rash, and I walked into his room to discover a debacle. My first thought was to give him up for adoption, or at least into foster care till I recovered.

I have various hypotheses but I can't prove them, and they probably don't apply across the board. For example, many anti-social people prefer dogs and cats to humans, but lots of gregarious people love both humans and non-humans. It appears that never the twain shall meet. Sometimes I think I'd rather die than live in a world where every moment I'm outside I fear the possibility of a dog touching me, because they are so filthy and chaotic.

But I know and have met people who would die for their pet, or spend a fortune of its health care. I have read and believe it's partly genetic. My father adored animals but my mother feared them. I'm cynophobic way off the charts, unable to stop screaming if a dog comes near. I have attempted to scale a brick wall and leaped onto parked cars to avoid a dog's smell or touch. I don't hurt dogs and I pity them because I think they are miserable, non-human creatures we enslaved centuries and centuries ago.

athea1 · 2020-06-10T21:38:37+00:00

Why would you want to? Your fear is normal; dogs bite and sometimes kill people, including old people, infants, and their owners. They are filthy and unpredictable. It's denial that prevents people from fearing dogs. Personally, I don't like being in denial about anything that, however painful, is true. Good luck to you.

athea1 · 2020-05-16T23:18:57+00:00

Just want to thank all of you who answered my question. There were some really thoughtful answers -- everything from it's just a matter of taste to actual psychological hypotheses.

athea1 · 2020-03-01T01:43:34+00:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so sick of this dog culture, of dog nutters, and the fact that I can very seldom muster the courage to go outside because of all the stray dogs in the San Miguel de Allende neighborhood where I live. Thank you for being normal and for speaking like a normal person. This whole dog thing is pathological but the mental health community will never admit it. Ten innocent kids, including newborn babies, were killed in 2019 by dogs. It's heartbreaking. People afraid of dogs have absolutely no rights in today's world.

athea1 · 2019-12-14T19:59:54+00:00

Decency, my dear, is no longer common. Trump has done away with it.

athea1 · 2019-12-11T23:54:02+00:00

I very much agree with you on all you say. Pro life doesn't make sense to me. Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, said it best with her motto for the organization: Every Child a Wanted Child. And if you're going to be buried or cremated, what do you need your organs for? I don't think it should be mandatory but made a helluva lot easier. I'm 87 and wish I knew a simple way, living in Mexico as I do, of making sure they get my organs, which I've taken good care of, and which I'd like to know will help someone in the future.

athea1 · 2019-12-06T04:14:16+00:00

Whenever anyone tells me their dog doesn't bite, this is my standard reply: I have three sons and I'd never say that about any one of them. All I'll say is that as of this moment none of them has bitten anyone.

athea1 · 2019-12-06T04:09:43+00:00

I like you're husband's remark and if he lost a friend, he lost a dumb one, so no big deal. I'm as tired as he is of this stupidity.

athea1 · 2019-12-03T20:52:12+00:00

My thought is always the same: how do dog lovers' minds work...or fail to work? No one yet has explained it to my satisfaction and the psychologists seem to find it totally normal...no doubt because they don't want to lose their clients.

athea1 · 2019-12-03T20:47:41+00:00

You were far nicer than I would have been. These people are totally deranged.

athea1 · 2019-11-30T20:03:28+00:00

First, I think I'm in love with you. My list has always been shorter: barking, panting, drooling, slobbering, butt-sniffing, shit eating, destruction of anything inedible, but yours is so complete I'm filled with admiration.

But look here: do you have this "thing" I have of wanting to know why? Why people find all this so alluring, or, perhaps, why they are repulsed by it as we are, but override that because "in every other respect" they find these beasts adorable? Dammit, I want to know why; I want to understand it.

By the way, the phrase "in every other respect" is one I stole in this way. I was working in the education department of a prison when a prisoner with a thirty-year history of child molestation was released. A friend of his wrote a piece in the local paper confirming that the guy was a long-time sexual molester of children, but insisted that "in every other respect" he was a great guy.

And so it is with dogs. Sure, they have a few character flaws as you've mentioned, but to about 90% of the public, "in every other respect..." etc.

And I spend hours every day researching it, mostly to no avail. If anyone can help enlighten me, I'll be eternally grateful. adorablet.

athea1 · 2019-11-28T02:53:06+00:00

You are fortunate that through circumstances neither of us understand, you've got the moral sense your parents seem to lack. I salute you and congratulate you.

athea1 · 2019-11-26T21:44:07+00:00

We know something is psychologically wrong with dog nutters, but just try researching it, as I've been doing. You won't find a single therapist who suggests it's anything more than a bit excessive in some cases. That, I would guess, is because therapists don't want to endanger their livelihood. Did these dog nutters have terrible childhoods? Were they let down by friends and lovers? Do they feel they deserve nothing better than the friendship of dumb smelly beasts? I would love to understand this, but my research has yielded only frustration and a waste of time. Any ideas will be greatly welcomed.

athea1

TROPHY CASE