Chasing the mystical chihuahua

An unpleasant question arose one afternoon as I sat in my favorite coffee-trough. Attempting to enjoy every hard earned second of my break, I savored the 20 minutes in a patch of weak sunlight, sipping something overpriced and hot. Somewhere in the middle of this, the wooden doors, swollen with autumn damp, swung open on creaking hinges to let in the silhouette of a woman with a purse the size of Sri Lanka slung over her arm. I recognized her immediately. She was a woman I'd known for years as a local savvy business owner. Of a calm, cheerful disposition, her personality often suggested a level head, a Calamity Jane no-nonsense social attitude mashed together with Mrs.Piggle Wiggle. She came in from the cold with rosy cheeks, quietly stylish in woolen garb and a knit beret, and said hello to the many familiar faces around her. And then it happened: A movement, minimal and furtive, dizzily signaling from the zippered opening of her bag. A dog's head. Small, shivering with fear and doubt of his own safety, round brown eyeballs protruding forth on the verge of doing something indecent. It's snout huffled and puffed, and let out a sneeze that resembled an earthquake. "AWWWW!" proclaimed the masses.

"Oh crap", proclaimed my brain.

The question that followed was this: What do you do when a person you'd formed a distant but highly respectful opinion of suddenly arrives upon the scene exhibiting a habit so foul as to make you wonder at your own personal judgment? Do you just remain sad and try to move on? Do you confront them, ask them things like, "Whoa, why are you trying to harsh this nice mellow I've formed around our distant acquaintance?"

I do not hate dogs and I do not hate dog-lovers, but what I hate more than anything is the assumption that everyone wants to be involved with another person's pet, at any given time, in their some of their most singularly personal environments. I can only assume that it stems from a desire to have something to parent, and that, as with most good parents, they believe fervently that their child/animal is so adorable and perfect that no one could think it offensive.  But it is offensive. On two levels, which I will describe thusly:

1) Gross, dude. Animal dander, sneezes, and residual poops abound in the most microscopic portions as to make the average admirer sure that they don't exist. But they do. And they float around and land on things, like the surface of my coffee and the lining of my nasal passages, and on the table where my hands land and pick them up and put them on things that might end up in my mouth. Fucking immensely gross.

2) We do not all love your dog like you do. (Is this a new phenomenon, or have people who failed at parenting and/or letting go always replaced their humans with little malleable creatures who can't speak/talk back?) Try this: As a rule of thumb, in most of the world, 78% percent of the population will not look at you Sri Lankan-purse dog and think, "Wittle cwootie pie!". Rather, they will think, "That thing eats its own shit".

Some food for thought.