Chaotic Not Random

Before we begin, a brief disclaimer: I like dogs.

What I hate is dog owners, of which we have plenty in Colorado. Dog owners around here do not understand what a dog is -- or, more accurately -- what a dog is not. They cannot grasp that dogs are not human. Dogs cannot reason. They cannot fathom courtesy or etiquette. They act out of instinct and conditioning instead of logic. They are not moral animals. There is no such thing as a "good dog" or a "bad dog," in a sense; we use these terms to describe dogs that behave the way humans want them to and dogs that behave otherwise. What we call a "bad dog" is a dog that is only behaving naturally, by pooping and peeing in inappropriate places, maybe, or by barking in the middle of the night, or by humping a stranger's leg.

Owning a dog is a great responsibility, because it involves spending time and money to train a not-terribly-bright animal to behave unnaturally -- that is, to poop and pee only in designated areas, or to keep quiet at night, or to put on a condom before humping the stranger's leg. Many dog owners do not understand this. They see their dogs as "animal companions" who think and act like humans and are naturally well-behaved.

They're not. Dogs, for instance, are predatory animals whose instincts tell them to chase moving objects. I know this because I'm a runner, and oftentimes I'll run past yards with unleashed dogs playing in them. So the dog runs after me, barking and growling, or sometimes he dashes in front of me, blocking my path and jumping up and down, yelping and drooling with excitement. This is the cue for the owner to put down her Nora Roberts novel and shout, "Oh, Digger, stop it! You get away from that man right now!" Digger, of course, keeps jumping up and down, because he's a dog and he doesn't speak English. His tiny dog brain can't process grammar or syntax or the prepositional phrase "from that man." He can understand his own name, the word "cheese," and one-word commands, like "sit" and "stay" and "come," assuming that he is properly trained, which obviously he isn't because properly trained dogs do not chase strangers.

Here's a helpful hint: if you're too lazy to train a dog, you shouldn't own a dog. Get a pet that doesn't need to be trained, like a canary or a hamster. If you own a dog anyway, and your dog can't be trusted not to chase after or otherwise molest strangers, then you are responsible for restraining your dog with a fence or a chain or a leash (a short leash, that is, not one of those 30-foot retractable jobs).

"Wow," you are saying. "What the hell happened to you, Kilgore, to get you all riled up about dogs?"

Well, I was walking in Washington Park one night last week when I passed a woman walking her dog in the opposite direction. As we passed each other, the dog, which was on a leash, leaped at me. Its jaws closed around my wrist and its teeth raked across my skin.

I won't exaggerate the extent of the injury because there was no injury. The dog's teeth didn't break the skin or even leave any marks. My wrist was slightly sore for an hour, and that was it. But still, a person ought to be able to go for a walk in a public park without getting bitten. Do you agree? Am I being completely unreasonable here? Am I also being unreasonable when I say that someone who owns such a dog -- I can't have been the first person he ever snapped at -- should pull her dog to the side when strangers approach?

The woman continued walking while I looked at my wrist, dumbfounded. "Oh, come on," I said in disgust.

She glanced back. "He's a nice dog," she said. It kills me that dog owners will insist that their dog is a good dog or a friendly dog immediately after -- or sometimes while -- their dog does something patently naughty or unfriendly.

"He bit me!" I said, trying to summon righteous anger.

"He didn't bite you," she said.

I couldn't believe it. "What do you call it," I said, "when he closes his jaws around my wrist?"

"He didn't bite you," she called. "Get a life."

Let's recap: a woman failed to restrain her dog, allowed him to bite me, denied that her dog bit me, and then told me to get a life. What are the appropriate words for such a situation? "Go to hell!" maybe? "Fuck you, cunt!" perhaps? Whatever the correct thing was to say, I didn't say it. I turned around and walked away, and thought awful and violent thoughts for the remainder of my walk.