(Don't) Pet Me Like You Do

There are two kinds of people in the world— people with pets, and people with peeves about pets. To the disapproval of many of my friends, I am one belonging to the latter kind, and I have been classified many times as being heartless and having a dark soul. While I may never adopt a pet, I do find the behaviour of many of my pet-owning friends amusing and slightly questionable, and I will waste no time in pointing them out.

Instacatgrams: Britney Spears has a twitter account for her pet dog (@hannahspears), and often tweets back and forth with herself. You laugh now, but believe me when I say making social media accounts for pets is an actual epidemic taking place right now. The pet owners/adopters create the accounts for their clueless wards with all the excitement of a new FarmVille player, tagging you in photos and bombarding you with requests to "follow" their accounts. Perhaps they create these accounts to spread awareness about the rearing of pets. Or maybe they like receiving the influx of notifications that only cat videos can bring. Either way, it's a little weird and very annoying.

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Belly Rubs: How about— no? I understand that you are a very brave person, with incredibly bad eyesight which makes you blind to the presence of the razor sharp teeth that is all too obvious to me, but I do not want to touch your pet. I don't want to be near your pet. It's not fun to force your dogs on me when I am clearly terrified of them. Standing by laughing as they growl menacingly in my ear makes you a real bad friend. If you can see that someone is uncomfortable in the presence of your pets and you have the ability to call them off, why not do it? What joy do you get from watching your friend become miserable and covered in slobber? If you want us to like your pets, this is not the way to do it.

PDA: "Petting and Display of Affection". We get it, your pets are your babies, and you birthed them right out of you and into the kennel. You're very attached and it's easy to see that from all the fur on your face and clothes and hair. Like, that fur is really everywhere. It's getting on me now, and I'm allergic, so thanks for the nosebleed. Also, does no one else find the baby talking creepy? Sure, a dog can be trained to understand certain commands, but I doubt your goldfish understands the sentiment behind you making kissy faces behind the tank.

I realize by now you are probably looking at me some sort of vicious animal-hater, but I promise you I am not. I melt at baby animal videos and I've (wanted to) name several of my friend's cats. I just happen to be one of those people who grew up hearing too many animal-injury related stories. I blame the Discovery channel. 

Nifath Karim Chowdhury likes to doodle all over her notebooks, textbooks and life. Send her a virtual high-5 at nifty_nicole@live.com or a wave on instagram @nifathkarim