It is not uncommon that people use their pets as an indicator for who to have relationships with. On dating sites, you see comments like, “Must like pets.” What they are really trying to say is, “My pet must like you.” We seem to believe that pets have some psychic ability to discern the character of people.
Pets are a bad judge of character. Put them on a chain in front of your house and they hate everyone. Pets hate delivery people and these are the folks that deliver presents to you on your birthday and Christmas. Pets should hate animal control officers, but with a chocolate chip cookie, a pet will become their best friend (and no, one chocolate chip cookie will not kill a pet). Let’s face it, you cannot trust your pet’s insights.
As pet owners, we place too much trust in our pets. We don’t know what is going on in their heads. If we did, we would have the ability to prevent dog bites. Pets are like people, they are unpredictable. Every year we read about a dog killing his or her owner. Who could have predicted that?
Animal Control Officers become sensitive to the potential dangers of situations that put people and pets at odds with one another. Too often we witness pet owners disregarding our suggestions, only to discover that we were right. My experience as an animal control officer is that pet owners are the ones who know the least about their pets.