We humans believe that once we get to know an animal, and they have proven themselves gentle and trustworthy with us, that the animal will be gentle and trustworthy with everybody else.
We have anthropomophized animals so much that when they show and demonstrate the slightest hint of human compassion and empathy, we think they are capable of so much more. True human understanding. I love animals. I believe they are capable of love, dreams and making memories. I believe they do understand compassion and I believe they are capable of heroics and of amazing human-like qualities.
Never, never have I thought that animals are .. not animals. They still understand things in their own quirkly little animal minds. They still see things, hear and smell things in ways that we humans seem to be incapable of doing-- and they will still act in their own lovely animal nature when left to their own devices.
So why on earth do human dog owners (and many other animals, but today I'm picking on dogs) believe that their dogs are trustworthy enough to run around a city block without a leash? I speak for my neighborhood, where my neighbors have been known to open their door, let their dog run around their lawn or down the block, and assume the dog will return.
Dogs often do.
But sometimes cars go down the street too quickly to see them.
Sometimes the dogs actually like to go INSIDE the cars of people who are nearby. This happened several times to one dog, who nuzzled his way into three cars before people yelled enough for his owner to come get him.
And my neighbors in particular have no problem letting their dogs run around their driveway and their lawn-- not even thinking that another person on the block could be terrified of them.
Their dogs have run up to me, sniffed me, barked at me and growled at me as I'm walking from my car to my apartment. "They won't bite," the owners assure me.
I'm not so sure. It takes great restraint not to yell at my neighbors in language which I put aside during the school day, and often I am shaking as I go up the stairs to my home.
Dogs that are the most loving creatures will bite when they feel threatened, and just because we humans see a different lawn or a house and think, "oh that's not our property," who knows how much the dog believes is his territory? The yard? The driveway? The whole block?
Dog owners in my neighborhood are just awful, and I'm curious if it's particular to my block or if dog owners all over are just careless, or stupid-- or so in love with their pets that they think, like a certain lion-tamer that eventually was eaten, their animals are above and beyond being the dogs they are?
