Is it ok to be afraid of dogs?

That’s a question an upset person asks in a column in one of our major Swedish daily newspapers.

I can answer that question. Sure you can, but you don’t even need to be scared or allergic to harass innocent dog owners. That right is so fundamental that it doesn’t even need to be questioned.

We (a dog-owning family since the 1970’s) really don’t recognize the situation in the question. Maybe it’s a typical big city problem?

In our family we never try to get non-dog loving people to pay attention to our babies. Far too many times we’ve run into animal haters and other intolerant people and we always prefer to stay as far away as possible from those.

This is how it really is in our towns: Seagulls and canada geese are to be shot. Store owners want to follow dog owners home and pee in their mailboxes. (By the way, our female dog would only be able to pee on this store owner’s potted plants if we lifted her up and held her above them, in which case she’d never pee at all.) People awake after seven thirty in the evening should be evicted from their homes. (I’m not talking about neighbors partying all night. Far from it. It’s more than enough if you sneak downstairs to get a glass of water, once in a while.)

A typical situation:

The dog sits down and does her business. (This is a pleasant, friendly pet dog, not a pit bull type). You stand around patiently waiting, your little black plastic bag in your hand. Suddenly a concerned citizen pops up out of the blue yelling that we have to pick up after our dog. What do they think the bag is for? Or are they blind? Which leads you to wonder how they were able to tell that the dog sat down at all.

One ‘helpful’ elderly woman took the opportunity to point out some of the dog’s ‘business’ just in passing, so that we wouldn’t forget even one of them, when standing hunched over, holding on to the bag.

My question is this: Is it ok for us to exist? If not, I sincerely hope we’ll find a better place to live, somewhere far away from animal haters and intolerant neighbors.