PEOPLE ARE SO CONCERNED ABOUT THIS DOGS MASCULINITY
HES A DOG
no you don’t understand. People freak the fuck out if you don’t enforce human gender roles on dogs. They get fucking belligerent. I work in a pet store and the number of times people have gotten LIVID with me for not just automatically assuming their dog not only required but personally wanted the most stringent enforcement of human gender norms is mindblowing.
People demand dog shampoos that smell “masculine” because “He’s a boy he doesn’t want to smell like flowers” even though he’s a dog and if he had his way he would smell like duck poop. And those shampoos exist! That’s the worst part! There’s enough demand for dog shampoo that smells like Axe body spray that they exist and they sell well.
Or the seemingly nice old lady that shouted “PINK! OBVIOUSLY! SHE’S GIRL SHE HATES OTHER COLORS!” at me when i asked what color harness she wanted for her lapdog. Even though her dog can’t actually see the color pink and does not now and will not ever give a single flying dog fart what color her harness is.
Even our pets have to deal with our gender socialization bullshit.
I work in a pet store. Can confirm. If I don’t know the sex of the dog, and say, I pick up a blue lead to show the customer it’s different uses, I’ll get “well she’s a girl, so” and I’m like? Um? I’m just showing you it’s functions, there’s like 20 different colours here you can choose from?
And my manager wants us to separate boys coats/accessories and girl coats/accessories for accessibility for the customers……. like…….?
??????? They’re dogs.
This. Is. BULLSHIT. Also, when I worked at a grooming salon, one groomer would bring in her family’s dogs. Poms, the lot of them. They all got bows. Even the boy. He was a goddamn beautiful dog. Customers got mad. About a boy dog wearing bows. A boy dog THAT WAS NOT THEIR DOG wearing bows. Let that sink in.
Actually just like a week ago someone got testy with me because I put my female chihuahua in a blue polo shirt and they were like “she’s a girl she looks like a boy in that” and I was just like… She’s a dog.
I groomed dogs for five years and yeah. Bows on female dogs, bandanas on males. And if you only had bandanas, it was pink on the females and blue on the males. Once a customer requested a pink bandana on her male dog, and another customer actually made a snide remark. I was like ?? ? ? ???? ? ?
I put a teal collar and leash on my golden, because she has a gorgeous red coat and I think the colors go great together! But this upsets a lot of people at the dogpark who insist on calling Rosie a “he” even when I’ve told them she’s a girl. People have actually told me I should give her pink accessories to be “less confusing”. And like… I’m sorry but pink…?? With red hair?? What kind of fashion travesty do you think she is, the Little fuckin’ Mermaid?
I take Bowie to the dog park a lot, and the past few months he’s had nail caps on because he scratches up my moms’ hardwood floors when he goes over. And I figured, hey, it’ll be fun to give him blue nails to go with his pretty blue eye!
SO MANY comments on the fact that I’ve “painted” his toes blue. Like, men at the dog park are genuinely concerned that his nails are blue. Shit like, “why would you do that?” / “what did your mom do to you?!” / “you’re embarrassing him!” Etc. RIDICULOUS SHIT.
He looks FAB and the only thing he cares about is the attention and treats.
I’m getting him bright red caps next time.
My dog is a girl and she wears a Star Wars collar because I like Star Wars. I'm like 99 percent certain she wears the collar because she likes the jingle jangle of her tags.
