1/ Dog shit – it’s everywhere so, as well as having to spend all the time out walking trying to avoid it, when I fail I have the horrible job of cleaning it off my shoe and sometimes my car or carpet.
2/ The barking and aggression I have to put up with on most walks. I’ve only been bitten once but I’ve had a number of scares and always feel threatened when a dog barks at me. Even when there is no chance of them attacking me I find the noise stressful.
3/ Friendly dogs that jump up at you and muddy your clothes and their owners who say “Don’t worry he’s only being friendly” and I’m too polite to do more than smile when what I want to do is shout “Get your wretched beast off me,” or something ruder.
4/ The awful smell in some of my dog-owning friends’ houses.
5/ The hair and smell left behind by visiting dogs in my home.
6/ Having to listen to “doggy talk” about how clever, funny etc. somebody’s dog is.
7/ Having to make positive comments out of politeness about someone’s dog with total insincerity.
8/ Having to decide whether to tackle an owner who has just let his dog defecate in a public place – I avoid conflict as a general rule.
9/ The cost to the environment through global warming by a large dog is the same as an average SUV reportedly.
10/ Dogs scare off the wildlife so those of us walking without a dog are denied the views that we would otherwise have, and we might have a richer fauna in our countryside without their inquisitiveness and aggression.
11/ Dogs in pubs and cafes that hassle you when you have food, looking soulfully into your eyes, hoping you’ll be generous.
12/ Dogs urinating on car’s tyres just before you have to check the pressure.
13/ Dogs are unpredictable and every week there are reports of them savaging children and even adults. They kill a number every year.
There are too many dogs in the world. Number estimated at 900 million. This compares with say less than 100,000 giraffes Twitter 6/3/23
Also unbelievable are owners who go to the trouble of removing the dog shit into little plastic bags and then slinging the whole lot into a nearby hedge. Are they trying to draw attention to the good deed they’ve done?
Upwards of 70 percent of U.S. households have pets, and because the meat industry is so high impact, dog food consumption results in about 64 million tons of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere. Twitter 7/3/23.
As all dogs in the UK have to be chipped it would be easy to implement an annual tax. Some of the proceeds should go to councils to help pay for the collection and disposal of the dog muck. Currently us non-dog owning people subsidise this.
4/ The awful smell in your dog-owning ex-friends’ houses!
Not that I disagree mind..
Ivor Cutler used to sprinkle hundreds and thousands on any pile of dog shit that he encountered, thus bringing the hazard to the attention of other pedestrians, and potentially embarrassing the dog-owner responsible for the excrement next time they passed that way. It’s a long time since I’ve seen any in Nantwich, but Paris is awash with the stuff!