It's been discussed that we have this strange cultural phenomenon of younger people who aren't having kids and instead getting a dog that they treat like a human child. But on the other end of the age spectrum, Baby Boomers are replacing their empty nests with puppies and also treating them like human children. And in the spirit of dog owners getting breeds completely unsuited to their lifestyle, in my area at least, Boomers are getting puppies of extremely high energy dog breeds, and a lot of times when I see them in public, these dogs are obviously too much for them to handle. Gone are the days when little old ladies just had 8lb yappy purse dogs. Now they have herding breeds, shepherds, pit mixes, etc.
A recent example: my husband and I took our kids to the park a couple of months ago. The weather was unseasonably warm for early spring, so the playground was pretty crowded. The kindly old lady down the street brought her grandson and her 1.5 year old herding dog. Within a few minutes of them arriving, the dog yanked the leash out of her hand and ran around the playground, running up the jungle gym stairs, going down the slide, rushing people, just generally out of control. Meanwhile, she's hobbling after the dog and pathetically calling its name, which the dog could of course give two shits about because it's not well trained and finally free to do what a herding breed wants to do. Thank goodness no little kids were knocked off the top of the jungle gym (which would have been an over 6 ft drop).
I actually don't dislike dogs. I loved the ones I grew up with, and even though I would never own one as an adult because I don't want to pour that much money, time, and work into an animal, I can appreciate someone else's well-behaved dog in the proper setting. Unfortunately as a culture, we've completely lost the plot on a dog's role in society and I think that's probably why a thread like this even exists in the first place.
