queerautism:

furbearingbrick:

rslashrats:

i understand the sentiment with the whole “people prefer dogs over cats because cats have boundaries” thing but dogs have boundaries too. i feel like people need to stop acting like dogs don’t also have boundaries

Fun fact! The main reason chihuahuas have a reputation for being “mean” is that people deliberately tease them and ignore warning signals they’d otherwise heed if it were a medium- to large- breed. Goading your pet into a growling fit for a “funny” video isn’t cute!

People often treat small dogs’ warning signals as funny, and punish big dogs’, because they think a big dog growling is dangerous. No, it’s telling you it was something to stop, just like small dogs are. If you take that away, either by punishing or disregarding it as funny and continuing, what you get is a dog who feels the need to escalate closer to biting without warning next time.