I recently went on a walk with a friend and was looking forward to a long-awaited catch-up – until I saw she had brought her dog. “Oh, Trixxie gets so lonely on her own,” she cooed defensively before we had even passed the park gates.
For the next couple of hours, my friend would incessantly break our conversation with shouts of, “Come on, good girl, catch!” as she lobbed a slobbery, smelly ball through the air.
“It is not my job to put up with your mutt,” I wanted to say, as she handed me her steaming poo bag while she rummaged around for doggie treats in her bag. I found it all so irritating – and borderline rude. I haven’t spoken to her since.
What is going on? As I reach my mid-sixties, all of a sudden my friendships now contain a side order of smelly pooch. Not only do they bring their four-legged pals everywhere with them, supposedly in case of separation anxiety, but they seem to think their animals are more important than me.
Whether it is an antidote to the loneliness of empty nest syndrome, the fallout of a mid-life divorce – or just a yearning for a loving creature that doesn’t answer back or steal the remote – hit post mid-life and everyone is going canine crazy.
And it is the single worst thing about friendships in your sixties.
As a childless adult, I have spent decades waiting for my friends to finish with their school runs, teenage dramas and family obligations.
Just as I was imagining a future of unplanned pub lunches and last-minute city getaways, they now have to think of “Jezebell” before they can even come out for a bite to eat.
Worse still, they fret and fuss over them as if they were real babies. “Oh dear,” another friend murmured, one afternoon when I insisted she leave the dog outside the kitchen while we were eating – “Jasper looks a bit tearful.”
“They are not children!” I want to scream, when they jokingly tick off “Fifi” for pinning me down on the sofa and blasting me with foul-smelling breath.
Last week, one mate even brought her dog along when we met for an evening meal at an expensive Italian restaurant. As we chatted, I found myself trying to swallow a premium osso bucco with a side order of yapping cockapoo. Why don’t we say something to these entitled friends who think you should love “Maisie” as much as they do, even when it’s scrounging for leftovers?
Let me make this crystal clear: dogs are dumb animals designed to roll around in the mud and chase smaller animals. They love you because you give them food. That’s it.
They don’t need pet spas, birthday canine cordon bleu (yes one friend had a party for her Labradoodle when it turned three). They don’t have opinions, world views or even fits of self-consciousness because they just farted in your face.
What is truly grim are the country weekends away that seem to define socialising in later life. Last year, I went to stay with friends for a party in the Cotswolds. It was idyllic, although most of the group – including the hostess – had dogs.
I put up with the incessant barking and a layer of dog hair everywhere, but nothing could have prepared me for being jolted awake at 3am by a slobbery kiss. I awoke to find one of the golden retrievers licking my face. “Ewwww!” I screamed, shooed it outside – and bolted the door. For the next few hours, I tossed and turned as it barked and whined.
The next morning, as I padded into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, I expected an apology and a matey hug. Instead, there was a collective titter as the hostess informed me, with a dry, dismissive air, that they always let “Jess” and the others sleep in the bedroom because “it’s their home”. I was momentarily speechless.
Why don’t my dog-loving friends respect my indifference to their animal? I am not a dog-hater – and I appreciate that you love your pet. But by failing to set basic canine boundaries – such as humans come first – friends like me have been pushed down the pecking order.
My entitled peers think that empathy for a spaniel’s anxiety far surpasses my right to a peaceful night’s sleep, or a skirt that isn’t daubed in dirty paw marks.
Well, hear this. I don’t want to play with your Pomeranian, talk to it in a baby voice or even smile and say cute things when it sits looking at me with doleful eyes. And I certainly don’t want it around when I meet you.
Dogs may be a man’s best friend, but if you insist on prioritising your BFF (best furry friend) – particularly if you let it bound into my flat and leave muddy footprints on my brand-new John Lewis ivory rug – then you’re the one in the dog house.
Sorry, but someone has to make a stand – and I’m not the one who’s been sniffing other dogs’ bottoms.
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