"Seamus--That's My Dog--Was Outside"

I'm not much of an animal person. Don't get me wrong; I don't go around kicking puppies or anything. I'm not cruel to animals by any stretch of the imagination. Just that, given the choice between having my face licked by a dog or an attractive woman, I'll take the woman every time.

What makes it all annoying is that animals really like me. It's like they can sense I'm not an animal person, so they purposely gravitate towards me like light to a black hole. Such was the case last night when I went for my jog. A dog started following me while still in my neighborhood. I tried everything short of actually kicking it to get it to go away, because I really didn't want a dog following me around campus and causing trouble. Well, it kept following me. Nearly got itself run over twice, too. I was finally able to give it the slip on campus when I passed a small group of people who cooed over the dog and it stopped to get attention. The dog either started following them or just wandered off after that, because I never saw it again (which includes not seeing it on the side of the road, for which I was thankful).

I want to be clear here, though. I didn't wish the dog any ill-will. My biggest concern was that it'd almost gotten itself run over twice while following me, and I didn't want that on my conscience. I may not be an animal person, but I'm also not a cruel person, either. It has every right to life that I do. What annoyed me was that it was just running around my neighborhood. It obviously belonged to someone; it had a collar but no tags. Now it's just another stray running around a campus already overpopulated with stray animals.

The whole incident just annoyed me, though, because people kept assuming it was my dog because it was following me. One guy yelled at me when the dog stopped following me and was seeking attention from him. I tried to yell back that it wasn't my dog, but the guy didn't speak very good English.

Anyway, there was a reason for relating this story, I thought, though it might've just been to let everyone know that I had a frustrating experience last night. But then I watched some anime (Sorcerer Hunters) and everything was better.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Traveling Wilburys, "Heading for the Light"