… apparently. The last week I have been using my brain-capacity on bitchy dog-owners. Owners who believe they are the best, experts and always right.

The first experience I had was when we walked in the forest. We met a woman with an Alaskan dog and two kids. Her dog was on the leash, while Smarty was running free. We passed them, and shortly after Smarty decided to run back to greet the dog, since I did not allow him to in the first place. He was really happy, wagging his tale, when I watched him as I walked around a turn. When I got closer and reached out to take his collar, he got “crazy” and “attacked” the other dog. He never bites, but it is like I pretend to, to scare of the other party. I finally got a hold of him, told him to calm down and sit down. After that I asked the woman if she could check her dog to see that it was fine. I knew it would be, but just to double check. She said yes. What offended me the most was her first comment after this episode. She asked, "does your dog have all the shots?" Like I was a poor homeless person, as there are a lot of in Humboldt County. Really? Thank you, lady. The last thing she said was, “you should socialize your dog."

The second episode happened at the beach. Two smaller dogs came running at the beach, and Smarty ran up to them playful wanting to say hi. He likes to tease small dogs, because they’re small and then he don’t care about them anymore. The owners scared him back to me. Half an hour later, they came back, and when Smarty ran up to them again to try to say hi, they both lifted up a dog each and held them, so Smarty couldn’t reach them. When we walked towards our car later we met a nice lady, who said that someone in the parking lot warned her about a crazy yellow lab running around at the beach. She had a Chihuahua and another smaller dog. She laughed while she said, “he doesn’t look crazy to me." Finally some real people I thought.

I understand where the dog-owners are coming from, but do not judge me because both my dog and I have good lives and are happy. If he were a danger to other dogs, I wouldn’t have let him run without leash or been chill about him. My dog is very social, but protective around me.

My dog is not crazy. He is a happy dog full of energy, which unfortunately can be offending for others. He does have a jealousy problem, which means that if other dogs comes close to me he will be protective, cause he likes to keep me, as his owner, to himself. Other than that, he is not crazy or an aggressive dog. He is the most charming and happy creature I know. Your mean dog-owner attitude just ruins someone else’s beautiful mood and day.