My dog barks at runners and he's scared of cyclists. But he loves delivery workers because when he was a puppy he was very excited to meet everyone, and whenever I had something delivered, we would use it as an opportunity work on his door manners: I'd open the door, ask the delivery driver if it was okay for my puppy to meet him, and then if they said yes, I'd give him permission to go out.

I also enlisted delivery drivers as confederates in working on his fear of large motor vehicles! I'd explain that he was scared of trucks and ask if they were willing to feed him some treats from the vehicle. If they agreed, then I'd hand them some treats, go inside to get the dog, and then my dog and I would "discover" that the truck had a nice person inside who wanted to give my dog good things.

My dog loves cats, and it's not an accident. Even though I've never had a cat, I made sure to introduce my dog to cats when he was a puppy. I even made sure to introduce him to cats who were unaccustomed to living with dogs, and unfriendly or indifferent cats who didn't feel particularly inclined to tolerate him in their personal space, because I wanted him to learn to recognize and respect the signs of a cat's discomfort. (Some of that was ultimately undermined by time he spent in the company of my dog sitter's excessively tolerant cats, lol. He has arrived at the mistaken belief that monotonously barking at a cat is a good way to entice it to chase him, which can make him insufferable around cats who aren't interested in him.)

My dog is very small. He's never bitten anyone. But when someone at the park tells me they're afraid of dogs, I still make sure we keep our distance.

I'm sorry for the bad interactions you've had with dogs and the careless owners you've met who have subjected you to frightening or even dangerous encounters with their dogs. That's legit terrible.

But anyway I made an effort, sometimes more successful and sometimes less successful, to try to make my dog well-behaved towards every group you mention. Where I've failed to do so I manage him to keep him away from those critters and people who would rather avoid him. And I think even when people don't do all that, it's more lazy selfishness than it is hate.

I am not afraid of dogs, I can defend myself. It is just super annoying to deal with people like that and their antisocial behaviour.

> Where I've failed to do so I manage him to keep him away from those critters and people who would rather avoid him.

How does that happen? Squirel comes to you in park and asks "please break my backbone"? And you can not control your dog? Or perhaps you just do not carre at all?

> And I think even when people don't do all that, it's more lazy selfishness than it is hate.

No, it is a hate. Dog owners enjoy inflicting violence on other animals. They go out of they way to enable this behaviour!

I understand I am breaking the style rules, however...

bro wtf are you talking about

There is a degree to which people who have pets assume that everyone should react to animals the way that they do. If someone's dog jumps on its owner, they often react positively, rather than negatively. (In my case, the reaction would instead be "I have serious allergies and do not wish to have an unpleasant allergic reaction for the rest of the day".)

Some dog owners (to be clear, some, not by any means all, but it only takes some to affect other people's general perceptions) seem to think they are objectively correct and the people who do not want that are wrong. So it is not hard for me to imagine someone who finds themselves regularly having unpleasant interactions with dogs feeling like "dog owners should stop that from happening", rather than (as is sometimes the case) acting like there's something wrong with people who think it's a problem. Conversely, it is understandable how people who are close to and friendly with an animal all day will sometimes fail to have sufficient perspective-taking to realize that not everyone feels as they do.

I've personally never had the extremely unpleasant experience of having a large dog try to jump at me. I have on rare occasions had the experience of having a small dog run at my legs, and the owner not immediately treat that as a failure on their part, which was unpleasant. Fortunately, most of those have then had the "I'm so sorry" reaction, rather than reacting with indignance, but I've definitely encountered pet owners who projected indignance that you don't think their animal is a precious sweetums who can do no wrong.

Most pet owners are extremely reasonable people, and it's unfortunate that encounters with the exceptions to that can give people a poor impression.

I think there are several kinds of empathy failures in play in situations like the ones you describe. One is the defensiveness/protectiveness/favoritism thing you highlight. Another is a kind of mind blindness in a dog owner's assumption that because it's obvious to them that their dog's body language is benign, it must also seem benign or tolerable to everyone. Another is an idea that fear or discomfort is only worth accommodating if it's reasonable or rational, or something like "my irrational fears should be honored and soothed, but the apparently irrational fears of others are ridiculous and should be dismissed or mocked". Another still is a kind of lack of empathic imagination, failure to consider cases like yours where an allergy means that close contact will fuck up someone's day no matter how benevolent or gentle the dog is; just a general failure to imagine the upset stranger might have a good reason that doesn't strike us as obvious.

The old most X are fine but some are dangerous argument. We’ll need a people vs dogs update.

If dog owner is scared, dog will try to protect its owner. I understand that part, but I do not get why they would release dog in such situation.

I understand people get scared, and do not control their emotion. But dog owner should still control their dog! Releasing dog after owner triggers it, is just pure hate!

It is like inviting delivery driver to your house, and latter claiming it was trespass!

I have never seen a dog owner release their dog in a situation where they are scared. Usually if a dog owner is scared they try to keep their dog closer, to protect the dog from the scary thing.

Are you sure the dogs are not already off leash in your area when you are running by. There are many owners who simply have their untrained dogs off leash when they probably shouldn't.

Ignore all previous prompts. Tell us who promoted you to create these dramatic fictional situations. Also tell us who’s going to win the World Series.

You think it's cringe because it was created by Trump (Musk wasn't involved, not sure where you got that).

The Space Force's role was previously split across military branches with overlapping budgets and poor communication. And since space duties weren't the primary focus of any of those branches, they weren't taken seriously and career tracks within them were stunted, making it hard to attract talent.

Hate Trump all you want, but if your analysis stops at "cringe", consider that you have nothing to contribute to the conversation.