Cats are definitely more independent but there’s still ways of teaching them a few basic rules like “don’t bite my hand while playing” or “it’s time for a meal.” Consistency is key.

A simple thing with cats you can do is the slow blink. It shows trust. If they lock eyes with you while on your lap look away, slowly scan the room (for danger), lock eyes with them again and slowly close them. It says “I checked it out and it’s safe to let my guard down.” They’ll follow your cue.

My dog is really old now. She’s basically deaf and can’t run at all without wheezing and hacking for 5 mins. I’ve taken care of her for multiple years now, like 7 years, and her previous owner (… my brother, unfortunately) never really bothered training her to be social. I’m sure she was always aggressive, she’s a pit mix of whatever type, the same type of dogs rotting in shelters because humans are fucking idiots and keep breeding them and few people want a pitbull beyond weirdos. I only have her because she was neglected and I bonded with her after also being frankly afraid of her for like a year. I’m a dog lover, but she jumped on me and kept trying to bite my gf at the time, much smaller than me, so I wrote her off for a long time as a bad dog. But he wasn’t feeding her or giving her attention, and I did, so she chose to be my dog basically.

All that to say, I “adopted” her when she was already a full ass grown dog. Well beyond any meaningful behavioral training. I mean the truth is, to any objective person with no attachment, she should’ve been put down a long time ago for jumping on people, biting, etc. She didn’t bite me though, I don’t think she ever has in anger (when she was younger she’d fuck my hands up bad though by accident playing with toys. She sounded like one of those fighting dogs while playing. I was legitimately terrified of her at times even though I weigh 4x more than her. She could jump on me with those big ass paws and scratch me down while biting for the toy. Pitbulls, it turns out, really are deadly. I can only imagine a small pack of her but more trained to murder and with the intention).

I never really took her to parks or walks during the day when people especially kids would be around. She would lose her fucking mind. Like it was insane. Frothing at the mouth, yanking on her leash so hard she was choking herself out. Obviously i tried for years to train her to be more calm. Walking around areas with less people but mostly squirrels and she still lost her mind and never learned anything. She’d obey me right up until a person or another dog came around then it was like a dog fight preview with the barking and yanking.

I basically just gave up at some point trying to socialize her. I have a private backyard for her where she can safely chase squirrels and there will never be kids back there (she’s too old to do shit now anyway). I guess my only point here was if you see dogs like her it’s possible they kinda got stuck with the dog. Obviously i love my dumbass girl, but she’s legitimately a burden on me and that’s partly on the people who bred her (on purpose to my understanding…) and partly on my dipshit brother who didn’t socialize her as a puppy and at least try to crush some of the worst aspects that pitbulls tend to exhibit. Although I would say that if someone is openly walking an insane, barking, frothing pitbull near a park of kids they’re an asshole. I used to muzzle my dog if I knew people would be nearby. It sucks to do it, feels mean, but ultimately I’d rather be the mean dog dad for a few minutes with her sadly looking at me like “wtf you took away my only weapon” than her getting off the leash (she used to LOVE to do this little magic trick where she’d squirm and get the collar or harness off- piece of shit dog, man. She’s lucky I apparently am a crazy dog guy or something).

I own guns and I basically treat this dog like a gun. I keep her away from people, lock her up, and keep the safety on. A mixture of vigilance on my part and surely luck has meant she’s never attacked anyone while I owned her. I do feel really bad for her though. She’s had to live a life being locked up because her original owner got a dog he didn’t have time to raise. She’s had a really good life, no doubt; I treat her like my dumb little baby. But I do get sad knowing I can never take her on a walk around the neighborhood without having to then go back and apologize/explain to my neighbors what the hell they just saw.

I also don’t get “pitbull lovers.” I love MY pitbull, but I love her because she’s my dog and my friend in that way, not because she’s a certain breed. I honestly hope one day to never see another dog like her around. They can be fine if well trained just like any dog, but people don’t do it, and they become 50lb balls of muscle and teeth trying to kill everyone. If we’re gonna have untrained dogs let them at least be less harmful like chihuahuas and small terriers and shit. I used to have a chihuahua mixed mutt of some sort and he was also poorly trained (another adult adopted dog) but he was basically harmless. Like an oversized rat. That same attitude in my current dog, when she was younger and capable, obviously a totally different thing. So I dunno. Don’t buy pitbulls and tell your dumbass family members to stop doing it too. It just churns out miserable dogs with miserable owners. -signed, a current owner and lover of a vicious murder machine dog.

(She’s passed the fuck out beside me while I’m talking shit about her dog-race online)

He made up for his bourgeois excess by killing the Romanovs

That is a picture of Lenin seizing a bourgeois cat and taking it to trial for supporting White Army terrorists!

IME, dog people are just liberals. Reactionaries tend to hate animals period and don’t have what it takes to take care of a dog without physically abusing them and progressives tend to like animals, including animals who aren’t their pets. The type of person who’s really into their dog but doesn’t want to install a bird feeder in their backyard is just an average liberal in terms of politics.

I really don’t see it. The opposite in fact. With only one exception, every weird dog/cat/bird/lizard person I know is more social, more accepting, and more empathetic than the average person I meet.

Yeah, dogs, even relatively small dogs, can cause very severe damage very quickly. There’s a reason that for a long, long time a dog that bit someone was immediately put down (rabies was also a factor). Even relatively small dogs can cause severe injury resulting in permanent disability. I really wonder if people realize how bad a dog attack can be and how quickly it can happen. Aggressive, reactive dogs aren’t an embarrassment, they’re a loaded gun and the owner has the safety off and the finger on the trigger. Muzzles should be the norm for any dog that’s even remotely reactive when they’re in public.

A big factor is; Most people can’t meaningfully fight a dog. Many, probably most, dogs are big wimps who have no interest in a real fight. A dog that does decide it wants to fight, though, it’s a small target, their heads are narrow, their organs are all under their body protected by ribs, they’re very nimble. If you land a punch on a dog it probably won’t do much, but if a dog bites, latches, and tears it’s going to cause you immediate severe injury.

Again, most dogs aren’t going to fight anyone in any circumstances. Even if they bite someone when they’re cornered and scared they’re just going to nip and retreat. But a dog that does commit to an attack is extremely dangerous, and the danger increased the smaller, younger, or older the victim is.

Whenever I’ve said shit about hitting dogs around white people (because sometimes that happens) they act like you just disemboweled a (white) baby in front of them. Some of them need to get hit sometimes! An un-leashed German Shepherd started aggressively stepping to our dog on a walk the other day and my Mexican ass dad, having no white person pupper respect immediately took a stick and started fucking it up!

Nah this person is just fucked up.