Instead of delivery instructions about doors and gates, should pet owners include dog warnings?
Dogs can escalate and de-escalate meetups and home deliveries
When I heard the doorbell ring, I was prepared for the high-pitched yelping and the tap-tap-tap of hurried paws to see who was on the other side of the lobby door. I buzzed the delivery guy in, smiling at the box of Field Roast vegan pepperoni and Beyond Meat vegan sausage on a cheese pizza. There’s only one restaurant in the Chicagoland area that has perfected veggie-meat-friendly pizza, and I’ve bought so much of it that I should have stock. (Starbucks Reserve Roastery has a few plant-friendly pizza options as well, but they don’t compare to my go-to spot.)
ADVERTISEMENT ~ Amazon
As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a percentage from purchases with my referral links. I know some consumers are choosing to boycott Amazon for its DEI removal. However, I enjoy promoting intriguing products from small businesses, women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses who still feature their items on Amazon. All four of my Substack publications include a MINIMUM of one product sold by a VERIFIED Black-owned business. If you still choose to boycott, I 100% respect your decision.
While I was smiling and reaching my hand out for the delivery man to hand over my pizza, my legs were perfectly positioned to block my dog from going around me. Still, I couldn’t block out the transition from yelping to a deep-throated bark that makes my dog sound way bigger than she actually is.
Junee, my Hound mix, is the kind of dog that dog alarm makers would ask to record. If you don’t know what she looks like, you’d swear you’re in a scene from “Cujo” or “The Sandlot.” At over 6 feet tall and at least 200 pounds, I still couldn’t blame the delivery guy for walking backwards out of the lobby. The only reason I knew he hadn’t left was because he still held his arm out from the other side of the lobby door.
“Wait, wait, wait, she’s behind my legs,” I called after him. “She can’t get around me.”
The delivery guy wouldn’t move. I understood. I’m sure I react exactly like him when people realize I have Musophobia (fear of rodents). He clearly has Cynophobia (fear of dogs). Slightly closing my front door so I could adjust my legs, I reached my arm out to grab the pizza box and yelled out a “thank you.” He jogged away. I texted him to apologize about my dog, and he was good natured about it with an “It’s all good LOL” response.
ADVERTISEMENT ~ Amazon
As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a percentage from purchases with my referral links.
This was one of a few times I wondered if delivery people with Cynophobia read my delivery note ahead of time. I always include the sound of my dog’s bark so they’ll be prepared to hear and potentially see a dog. (Black Dog Syndrome may also make people more scared than other types of dogs, sorta like people are careful around black cats.) And with a dog like mine, who has a 50/50 chance of liking whoever she sees, I’ve watched her leap up at the dog park to sit next to a total stranger and let him pet her but then run backwards and growl at another guy in my neighborhood.
My dog sold me out for a Puppuccino “Pup Cup”
When I agreed to meet a guy I only knew via email, I was skeptical of how this meeting would go. He and I hadn’t always been on the same page, and I wondered why he wanted to meet in person — when he’d had plenty of opportunities to do it before this day. I told him I was bringing my dog without being particularly concerned if he had Cynophobia. I expected this meetup to be a solid 10 minutes, if that.
And when I arrived at the Starbucks location where we agreed to meet and cleared my throat to see if this was him (I’d only seen him from afar one other time and didn’t really know what he looked like), he looked from me to my dog and squatted down. So much for Cynophobia. My dog backed up slightly and half-heartedly barked. I raised an eyebrow. This was nowhere near the aggressive growl she greets some other people with.
Within five minutes of talking to him, my dog was jumping up and down and slapping my thigh. She knew that this was the place with Puppuccinos. While I was trying to be guarded during this meeting and initially turned down his offer to buy me a drink, my dog was doing the exact opposite — still leaping around like a kangaroo. Real subtle, Junee. Real subtle. I sighed and agreed to the Starbucks drink and the Pup Cup, and that 10-minute meeting turned into three hours of chatting and strolling around. If not for nature calling from guzzling down hot cocoa, we may have hit the four-hour mark. Dogs certainly have a way of escalating a situation and de-escalating a situation.