To those who know me well this will come as no great shock, but I don’t really like dogs or kids.  Even if I know you and love you I will never ask you about your pregnancy or what kind of dog you have.  I will never coo over either one or lean down to a strange one on the street to pet them or ask to hold them or say “oh how precious.”  It’s just not going to happen.  Don’t get me wrong, dogs are great they do cool tricks and provide stress relief and companionship.  There are some gorgeous ones out there.  Kids are lovely too, I mean they are the future of our species. It’s impressive to watch them learn and I do enjoy playing with the ones I know well. They just make me mildly uncomfortable.

The dogs and kids I know personally I enjoy and love. My nephews are brilliant 2 year olds, I’m good with a beautiful Great Dane I know sitting on my foot, and my parents’ labs are even pretty good.  I get upset when people mistreat kids or dogs. Don’t have them if you can’t handle them.  I wish no ill will toward either group.

I do have some important information for both groups: Neither your dog nor your kid is adorable to everyone out there, everyone does not think the rude things they do are cute. They may very well be the center of your universe, but they are not the actual center of the universe, so act accordingly.

1.  For goodness sake put your dog on a leash! If you are anywhere that other people could be, your dog needs to be on a leash. I really don’t care how “normally he doesn’t get away from me like that.”

2. Please do not put your child on a leash even if it comes with a cool monkey backpack.  Hold their hand, pay attention to them.  My son had to have one hand on the cart until he could learn not to walk away. When he was too young for this he rode in the cart.

3. Control your dog enough that he/she never jumps on people who haven’t openly invited it.  I don’t mean in your own home so don’t get all up in arms (If I come into your home and you own a dog I consider that to be the dog’s home too and short of being really aggressive the dog rules there).  I mean in elevators, in common hallways and on the street.

4. Control your child.  They should not be running around a restaurant, banging on walls, running up and down the isles of anywhere.  If they make a break for it and it happens I get that, no child is perfect.  If you see this happening and ignore it, or worse yet they are being obnoxious and you make eye contact with me and give me that “isn’t that so cute Johnny is banging on the wall with the salt shaker he reached over your food and took off the table” look, well, that I have a problem with.

5. Pick up after your dog and don’t let them urinate by the doors to public buildings.  There is simply nothing worse than poop, sorry its true.  If you own a dog and you walk it you have to pick up it’s poop.  You just do and how arrogant of you to think that you don’t have to.  If you have a yard fine, that’s your yard, but if you are not the sole owner of the area your dog is defecating in, PICK IT UP!!

6. Do take care of your dogs and kids. If you aren’t going to walk it and feed it and take it to the vet regularly, don’t get a dog, That’s just mean.  If you aren’t going to teach them how to be good, feed them and help them grow into produtive members of society, then don’t have kids.  Neither one is there solely for your enjoyment. They have feelings and needs too.

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