Dogs And Their Owners

The Riverside Arts Market is an interesting event. I manned a booth for the Riverside Fine Arts for the second time in three weeks today at the market. It’s more of a bazaar than a swap meet, and that reflects its Riversiditiude. It’s held every Saturday underneath the Fuller Warren Bridge and the vendors range from a copper sculptor who I’m sure was in prison recently to upscale restaurants. I’ve been to the market as a customer and wandered around, but sitting there as a vendor is a completely different experience. When I’m there walking around, I’m usually trying to figure out how I can eat something from every food booth, so I miss what other people are doing. Strangely, no one serves alcohol. Someone should be selling beer. When I’m stuck sitting by myself at a table waiting for people to ask me questions I have time to watch what’s going on. There are a lot of old people and a lot of freaks in my neighborhood. I never see them en masse because I’m a home body and I don’t really care about them. When I say freaks I don’t mean the vendors with blue hair, tattoos, and piercings. I mean people and their dogs. That is a culture I do not understand. It’s a dogapalooza. Big dogs, small dogs, old dogs, puppies, it doesn’t matter. Two dog owners see each other and their dogs must meet. Butts get smelled. Leashes get tangled. The owners talk about how adorable the dogs are. Don’t get me wrong. I like dogs – well big dogs, anyway – but there are two kinds of dogs: nice and mean. I’m not talking about Dobermans or Pitbulls that eat children. I’m strictly talking about inter-canine relations. Some dogs are really happy to see other dogs, while other dogs see other dogs as threats to their time with their owners. What I don’t understand are the people who own mean dogs that take them out into public so they can be hostile to other dogs. They know their dogs don’t play well with others. Why bring them into public, and why do dog owners all look like their dogs? I’d never paid attention to this freakery until this afternoon, and I think there should be a study.