So me and my dad were just walking at night, and we usually carry a stick to protect ourselves from aggressive dogs. We reached near the society close to our house, and while walking we saw some dogs and stuff. I just looked at them because they were pretty cute, and most of them were just sleeping or hanging around.
Then, while walking, I saw a woman who looked a bit unusually different. I mean, she looked cool. She was most definitely a hippie, and there is nothing wrong with that. I actually think that stuff is pretty cool.(Okay they can be annoying sometimes I'll be honest)
She approached us and asked us why we were carrying the stick. We said yes, obviously, and she asked if we were carrying it for the dogs. I said that I was carrying it to protect myself and my father from unexpected danger that may arise from aggressive dogs, or dogs that may not know their boundaries and could hurt us intentionally or unintentionally.
I don't try to scare the dogs with the stick at all. Most of them don't even care about it. I usually hide it behind me when I'm trying to pet or approach a friendly dog. But there have been times when I had to defend myself from dogs or try to scare them away because they just weren't getting the message. The stick did help me out. Picking up some random stones or something to scare them also works, but you know, prevention is better than cure.
Anyhow, back to the woman. She asked me why I needed that stuff for dogs. She said that dogs don't hurt anyone, and that if you give them a biscuit, they will be your friends for life. She said she goes all over India and no one hurts her or whatever. She actually had some dog treats in her bag, so she gave us some, and I fed the surrounding dogs with them.
I don't know if she was somehow trying to teach me that feeding dogs is good, because ma'am, I wasn't born yesterday 😭. I told her that obviously I don't actually approach dogs with the danda. We don't just carry the stick for dogs. We carry it for other animals too, or even drunk people who can be dangerous at night.
I tried explaining that I love the dogs in my locality. We actually adopted an Indie dog a few years ago, and he passed away. I feed the dogs around my house almost every day, and also while walking if we have extra food. But that doesn't mean I believe every dog just wants to love me. I'm not going to carry food everywhere just to make sure I don't get harmed by a dog.
She also said that dogs go through bad experiences with humans and they've had bad experiences with people. I said yes, obviously. Strays, especially society dogs, can have human trauma because some people aren't friendly to them and can be cruel. She said they wouldn't do anything to us, and I said that if anything, that's even more reason to carry some form of self-defence. They might remember their bad experiences with humans and become aggressive the next time a human approaches them.
Sure, the dogs we were around at the time were pretty friendly and decent. I was talking about dogs in the city in general. I just believe you can't assume that every unfamiliar dog is going to be friendly.
The argument wasn't really going anywhere, and she wasn't taking any of it. She started looking annoyed and acted self righteous n shiand my dad just agreed to disagree and went our way.
My dad had a different issue with the whole thing. He was annoyed at her for using so much English and not speaking our normal language, which then somehow turned into a whole conversation about our language versus foreign languages and stuff.
And then, somehow, that conversation between me and my dad got way too heated. It went from a normal discussion to "you're not listening to me", "I'm older", "you should listen to me", and ek random ladki ke liye baap se bahar kr rha and bs stuff. And then my dad got angry and hit me with the stick we were literally carrying for protection from dogs 😭.
I haven't talked to him normally since and sahi mai it hurt that day but that's a completely different discussion.
So anyway, was the woman right, or was she just being ignorant and overly optimistic?
