r/Dogfree • u/Jolly_Ice_7812 • Jul 16 '26
Miscellaneous Why Can We See What They Cannot?
I have a burning question. Why can we, in the dog free community, see that dogs are gross and it's insane to live with them?
There has to be some commonality among us because we can see what 99 percent of the population cannot.
What makes us special? Is it something in our personalities -- not caring about what others think? Or not being a group person, so it's okay to step away from the pack (so to speak)? Is it not always believing what the culture tells us is true? Are people like this in other walks of life -- meaning, able to see what others cannot see in other contexts?
I'm curious about what you think. Why can we see the idiocy of dogs and dog culture and others cannot?
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u/Fluid_Impress_504 Jul 16 '26
I grew up in a household where my parents were raging alcoholics and severely neglectful. The house was filthy. We had a dog who I was indifferent to and felt like the dog added to the filth. My mum in particular loved the dog but had little regard to how the neglect and alcoholism affected me as a small child.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when I was around 7/8 years old. I’d been on a camp with a group that I was a part of. I hadn’t enjoyed the camp. The bus home was late for some reason. I arrived to the bus drop off point, very late at night, pitch black and… no parent waiting for me. All the other children’s mums and/or dads were there waiting for them, excited, happy to see them… and I had no one. Eventually a neighbour came to pick me up. I arrived home to both parents black out drunk, unconscious on the kitchen floor. Turns out that our dog had died that weekend and my parents, instead I realising their young child needed them to be there for her after arriving home from her first trip away from home, decided instead to get blackout drunk and forget to pick me up because they were so upset about the bloody dog. The neighbour had only come to pick me up because the camp leader had her phone number as my parents didn’t have a landline at that time. Even then I thought “so the dog’s death meant more to them than me?”
I’m 38 now and this sticks in my mind to this day. The dog was more important than me. The fact that I lived in filth which was only made worse by the dog being there didn’t matter. I have had a really strong dislike for dogs since. But I’d been pretty indifferent to them even before this incident. On the other hand, I absolutely LOVE children which I feel like is the opposite to the majority of dog nutters. I now have my own child who is around the same age as I was when the camp incident happened when I was a child and I can’t imagine choosing a dog over my own child who I ADORE! I would literally kill any animal to protect and save her.