Nuffnang

Saturday, July 17, 2010

A Beagle's Perpective of Humans

Apart from my human extended family and friends, this beagle encounters many kinds of humans on my daily walks.



1) The humans with dogs
a) The best kind of humans with dogs are the well-balanced breed. I love this breed of humans as this beagle has the time to sniff out my fellow canine as our humans stop to chat. The funny thing is our humans generally don't know each other's names, but they all know our names!

b) Although I would have thought that humans with dogs are a friendly lot, that's not the case all the time. Some humans tend to avoid contact, prefering to cross the street when they see other dog-walking humans. Now, to be fair, there may be valid reasons for their behavior. Not all dogs get along with other canines so it may be possible that their humans may be wanting to avoid any unpleasant confrontation between canines. One particular human with a collie and a little terrier smile apologetically at us from afar as the little terror, oops... I meant terrier barks ferociously at us for no apparent reason. On the other hand, the collie is as calm as can be. Go figure!

c) Then of course there is the paid domestic helper who has to walk their employer's dog. Often, the human owners delegate the responsibility of owning a canine to their maids. This begs the question of when the humans actually have the time to bond with their canines if the maid looks after their dog?

2) The dog-loving human
Some of these humans may not have their own dogs but love canines just the same. They will stop and chat with my humans, often asking to pat this beagle. Sometimes, parents will slow down or stop their cars just so their kids can take a look at this beagle or wave at us. After all, who can resist a beagle, right? Wrong! See the next two human breeds...

3) The fear-inducing human
We once met a father who was walking his young child. The father was having trouble keeping up with his energetic kid who had run ahead. When the father saw us approaching, he pointed to us and told his son "Look, dog!" Now, we thought that this father was teaching his son what a dog looked like. After all, this beagle is used to being an object lesson for little children. We could not believe the words that came out of this father's mouth next "If you don't behave, the dog will bite you!". My human wanted to let me loose to bite him for saying such an untrue thing to his impressionable child! This leads me to the next breed of humans.

4) The dog-fearing human
I come across this breed fairly often. For reasons of ignorance, wrong teaching (see above), bad past experience or "religious" reasons, this breed of humans are afraid of dogs. Some will show their fear openly, preferring to avoid us or sometimes even calling out "Anjing" (dog) to warn their fellow dog-fearing humans. My humans realize that there's not much they can do about humans who fear dogs, so out of respect, we generally try to walk quickly past them.

And there you have it, the good, the bad and the ugly...What type of humans do you encounter on your walks?

11 comments:

KEY WEST COLLIES said...

We see pretty much the same thing. Being a collies we get to hear Lassie a lot.

Essex & Deacon

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

Furry interesting points!

I often meet the best kind of humans on my walks - fur they are being walked by their khanines!

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Molly the Airedale said...

What a great description of many kinds of hoomans, Kess!
We don't see a lot of activity because we walk early in the morning and most of the time it's just other hoomans who just walk on past us and say hi but sometimes we do meet other doggies and mom and dad are always hoping that we're on our best behavior and mind our manners!

Love ya lots
Maggie and Mitch

Lorenza said...

Hi, Kess!
You are so right.
There are lots of "interesting" humans to meet day by day!
Thankfully, when I go out for my walkies, there are not lots of them outside.
And the ones I meet are kind of friendly. And I am the one afraid of them!
Happy weekend
Kisses and hugs
Lorenza

Thor and Jack said...

Interesting post! We've meeting several kinds of owners in our walks. Some nice, others not.

i said...

Pretty much the same!

Unknown said...

What an interesting post! And all such true observations! Yes, there are loads of those maids walking dogs back in Dubai as well - I just can't stand it - really, what IS the point of having a dog then??

Hsin-Yi

Kapitein Haakje said...

super post

thanks :D

Kissslobbers
El'bow & Hauwii

Mino said...

This is a really cool post! True, we met all sorts of people during my walks. Sometimes they are nice, sometimes they are scared and sometimes they just wouldn't care less and sometimes, they give the stare of "death".

i said...

Hi Kess, we have an award for you.

Oscar the Beagle! said...

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Thanks for signing my guest book.