Now that he can appreciate them, Ian loves looking at animals, so I try to always point them out to him. He might even enjoy petting them, I don't know; I don't let him go anywhere near them. If there's one thing I've learned from working in a vet clinic and having a vet for an uncle is that no matter how well you know an animal, no matter how long you've had it, you can never trust it around small children. Animals just aren't predictable, and neither are young children. The combination isn't a good one.
Example: Our family friends had a dog they had raised from a puppy. They've had this animal for a long time, and they have a lot of rambunctious kids who I'm sure, like all kids, mauled it to near death, and they've never had a problem. They just moved down to Utah and stopped along the way to let their dog stretch his legs. A little girl ran up to the dog to pet it and the dog turned around and bit her in the face.
The problem is that oftentimes people will bring their dog up to us and invite us to pet it, or bring it up expressly to show to Ian, or come up to see him and bring their dog with them. I've decided I need to have a reasonable reason to keep Ian a safe distance away (I can't really say I'm afraid their dog will go ballistic, can I? A lot of dog owners would be offended by that).
Here's where I need to make a choice: should I say we're allergic, or should I use old faithful and say Ian's afraid of dogs? Clearly lying isn't a problem for me, but which would make the better excuse of why I don't want Ian too close to their dog? Maybe I should just say I'm an overprotective mother....
6 comments:
I would go with allergy excuse. Then there won't be a chance of somebody trying to prove to you that dogs aren't scary. And I agree...not a fan of dog smell.
I swear, you and I must be secretly related somehow. As far as excuses go, I don't know about that one, but your friend Alli does make sense with why to use the allergy one. Good luck with that.
I think that allison is right to go with the allergy excuse...but for a different reasons. If you were to say that Ian is afraid, it might hurt his ego. Secondly, if you say he is afraid but then all of a sudden Ian starts fighting you to go pet the dog, then your cruel lie is exposed.
The allergy excuse sounds good...but I do think it would be really funny to have you tell them straight up that you don't want your child around dogs--think about the dinner conversations that would start around their dinner tables :)
Why can't you just say your dog smells and get it the bleepity-bleep away from my Ian?
Why??
;)
P.S. I might be coming to DC for the inauguration- can we play??
Yay! Party at the inauguration! We might go, too, if Jesse can get us tickets from work.
And, of course, we'll make plenty of time to play.
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