Man bites back at dogs

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Among the quickest ways to get yourself in trouble is pointing out that all dogs are not God’s perfect creatures, nor do they belong in every space where humans conduct human business and leisure. Like dumping on Christmas or George Washington, having a less than 100% positive opinion of canines is to touch an apparent third rail of contemporary society.

Renowned humorist/satirists/essayist David Sedaris has activated this cultural live wire with a piece published Dec. 8 in The New Yorker titled “And Your Little Dog, Too,” which described an unfortunate experience in Portland, Ore., in November when he was bit by a dog on the sidewalk.

As he tells it, Sedaris was on his way to buy doughnuts when he crossed paths with some folks smoking fentanyl on the sidewalk using an empty baby stroller as cover (apparently a common camouflage tactic among the Rose City’s public addicts). In addition to the carriage and drugs, they also had two unleashed dogs — both of which “rushed toward me, snarling, and one of them bit me on my left leg, just below the knee. It all happened within a second.”

That was bad enough, but what really rankled Sedaris was that no one — not the people ostensibly responsible for the dogs, nor practically anyone else he told about the incident — gave a damn about his pain. They mostly worried about the dogs’ welfare or otherwise gave them a pass.

By his own insinuation, the extent of Sedaris’ injuries weren’t too extreme, given that he threatened to but didn’t call the police, nor did he go to the hospital — instead visiting a pharmacy and getting on with the author event he had scheduled in the city later that day.

But all that wasn’t really the point. Sedaris’ piece has poked Portland’s bruised sense of self — eliciting an article posted Dec. 14 by the Willamette Week in which interim Associate Arts & Culture Editor Christen McCurdy suggested that he has recently “come across as tedious and cranky rather than funny and perceptive,” and sought to correct the record on some perceived misperceptions about Portland and Portlanders (“who are a little bit sensitive about our city lately, what with all the war-zone talk from the reality TV star who now runs the country”). Specifically, she reminded readers that it’s actually illegal to smoke drugs on the street in Portland and there are laws in effect in Multnomah County related to dog bites. Duly noted.

Again, that sidesteps the point. Why did no one care that Sedaris got bit by a dog on a public sidewalk in a major American city?

As a fellow dog-bite survivor, I feel his pain; and, as someone who likes dogs but doesn’t like them everywhere, I’d submit that the reason no one gave a rip about his attack is because a cult of doggophilia has been allowed to grow so large as to be become anthropophobic. 

From “dog moms” and “dog dads” of “fur babies” to the innumerable, insufferable instances I’ve heard a human say proudly they’d sacrifice other humans for the comfort of their pet, I’ve had it with this fetish.

I got bit while walking the streets 23 or so years ago as an ad sales representative for the Daily Bee and, as I was shaking the thing off my leg, the animal’s owner rushed out at me screaming “what did you do to my dog?” and “he’s a good boy!” I beg to differ. The same thing happened to my wife last year, when she was walking in Pine Street Park and a dog latched onto her in full view of the owner, who simply stood there telling her that nothing was amiss.

Don’t get Reader Publisher Ben Olson started on the years and mounds of dog turds he had to endure scattered around the front door of his former apartment in town, and don’t get me started on the occurrence I suffered just a week or so ago when I was enjoying a beer at a local bar and someone’s dog cut one of the nastiest farts I’ve encountered in 45 years of farts. I almost left, it was that disgusting. Then I spent the next hour or so having the animal jump on me while its owner shouted “down!” (though with a cutesy chuckle) and it barked at every other dog in the place, which also barked back to the point that I felt like I was drinking in a pound or some cur-filled Elizabethan slum. Don’t worry, though, they were all “good boys” and “good girls.”

Finally, just last week, I nearly got pushed into Cedar Street by some lady and her dog who took up the entire sidewalk (walking on the wrong side, I should add), and the former had the temerity to glare at me and spit an acidic “thank you” when I gave way. 

To borrow a phrase, “screw you, lady, and your little dog, too.” Count me among Team Sedaris on this one.