Spring came, my bitches were in heat. I got up at 5:30 a.m. to sneak through the side streets of the park from six, hoping to be able to go for a walk undisturbed. Vain. If it smells of estrogens, some males take a taxi to be the first on site.
Animals and the behavior of the owners
That's how we met Johnboy. Johnboy is an older golden retriever, obese, with a slow pace. He chased my Collies across the park, circled them, and posed in front of them. Yva, the younger, yapping, trying to keep her rump safe from him, and Fee, the older, menacingly lifting their lips, Johnboy's mistress relaxed on a bench and let the rising sun shine on his face.
There are males who sniff briefly and then go their way, and there are many dog owners who act immediately when they notice that their dog is starting up. And there are people like Johnboy's owner who think the park belongs to their dog. With everything in it.
I asked her to retrieve the dog. She laughed and said, "How? He's not coming now." I asked her to leash her dog and to pick her up, she said: "According to the dog law, bitches in heat are not allowed to roam freely. It really hurts my soul to have to see how you expose your animals to this stress here."
Males always want. And bitches are always to blame
Nice answers came to me on the way home. But at the moment I was too busy keeping Johnboy at bay. I tried to block him, stood between him and Yva, it was a fight, the owner called to me from a distance: "See, I say yes."
I think that I did not become palpable has to do with the fact that, as the bitch owner, I have deeply internalized the gender pecking order of the dog world. And that works according to the polluter pays principle: Males always want. And bitches are always to blame.
Exactly – we had that before, in connection with mini skirts. Johnboy was actually nothing more than the fat returnee of fat Mr. Weinstein, who just grabbed it, simply because he can. And while mankind is increasingly understanding that women don't have to prepay sexually to get jobs, there are crater-deep differences between flirting and harassment, and no actually means no, we reproduce the old idea of when dealing with our dogs' sexuality female guilt for the man's seductiveness, the bitterness of lust.
Canine # MeToo – do not bother bitches
I was thinking of a canine # MeToo to start, because, as in the human world, it is a systemic weakness that bears the injustice: laws that put bitches in heat on a short leash even when they don't have their "standing days", so really and honestly no sex at all want; Male owners who find their intrusive dog cavalier and somehow original; myself, defensive, always apologizing for the excitement we cause.
Then poncho turned the corner. A happy Labrador, 13 months, full of hormonal flowers. He paid respect to my older bitch with a quick glance, then asked the young one to play, they raged a little, I asked his owner how long he had been neutered, she said: "Not at all. I taught him that bitches not bothered. " Basta.
I was speechless. Poncho respected us. I thought it could be that simple. One simply says: is not. Strange that you can teach a dog this message in 13 months. If it took a few centuries for people.
Knows what she's writing about
Meike Dinklage, Also knows the other side, because she herself once had a male, which the veterinarian certified hypersexuality: Sam, the best of all dogs – after the castration.
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