All this started because I was eating lunch and overheard a stupid woman on her cellphone nattering to her friend about her dog demanding she get down on the ground to pet her. Seriously, what? Why are people so stupid about animals? Admittedly, pets are like your kids (or your life story): everything to you, mildly tolerated by your friends and family, and completely inane and BORING to anyone else. But I'm amazed at the number of people who just. Don't. Get. PETS. It's like they said to themselves "My stressed-out life, cheating spouse, and brat kids don't aggravate me enough. Let's get something that bites, poops, and scratches, too."

Don't get me wrong. In my head, I am a writer first, artist second, and animal-lover somewhere in between. But loving animals is not the same as respecting them. I can't fathom the amount of stupidity and self-centeredness it takes to throw up your hands and say "My dog rolls in dead things and chews! Why, God!? WHY!?" If you hug a scorpion, you deserve to get stung. Right? Please tell me I'm not alone in thinking that. When I see the brander get socked in the face by a horse, I get a feeling akin to reading the Darwin awards: everyone gets a happy ending.

I've trained dogs and my horse; that doesn't make me a professional. If anything, pets should relieve stress, not add to it. I tend to draw the lines at things that, for the most part, can't be trained in a useful way. Rabbits and rats are cute, like fish. That's about all they do. Cute gets boring. Complex condition-response mammals for me, please. Side order of cute. I like the fact that my dog can sit and come on command, that all it takes to stop my horse is to say "Whoa", and that my cats invite me to play and don't break the skin. It's understanding of a mutual sort, to the best of my abilities. I am not a guru, but I'd at least like to say that I feel I respect my animals and they respect me.

I guess stupid pets owners really aren't that hard to comprehend in laymans terms: people buy mortgages, cars, and businesses without doing their research. Why would they do it for a Shi Tzu? But animals are a constant, haranguing, presence if they aren't fun. You've got shedding, feeding, chewing, pooping; the list goes on. How can people grit their teeth day and day out? Don't they think, "Hey, I can solve this problem"? Do they even WONDER why horses bolt when they're scared? Or do they just think "Man, this thing is stupid. Stupid horse. Why don't you think like me?"

Actually, that's probably not too far off the mark, I think. It's the only thing I can come up with to justify why it's people who need to be trained, not the dog. It's a superiority complex. Or an emotional complex.

Seems to me stupid pet owners fall into one of three categories, with common crossovers:

The Macho Status - And lo, the creature becomes a status symbol. These are the idiots that buy the $10k horse, the gold-plated Chihuhua, bring it home, and forget to FEED IT. They love bragging to their friends and enemies that they've got such-and-such, though! Consider: Paris Hilton's 17 dogs in a city with a, like, 3-dog limit? And the morons who cared for what is now my neighbor's horse, a $2500 paint with $1500 worth of training who is borderline lame because they didn't know horses need hoof care. Their stupidity comes from ignorance, the lamentably sweet and idiotic belief that money solves all problems. It will feed and train your dog, too.

The Dramatic Bleeding Heart - Animals just need wuv. These are the people that think animals process just like us, think just like us, and feel just like us. These are the owners that feel guilty for eating chocolate-ship cookie dough ice cream and sobbing because they hate their fat instead of walking their dog. So they compensate by feeding the dog bacon. That snarling, pissing Pomeranian? He just needs a friend. Dress him up in a hat and jumper and give him a kiss. These people are usually utterly walked on and probably make up the large percentage of people who get bitten by small dogs. Consider: the person that lets their animal suffer a low, painful death because they can't bear putting them down. Their stupidity stems from anthropomorphosizing, the belief that animals have the same desires we do. They are little people!

The Validated Clueless - Something made me buy it, but hell if I know what it was. Maybe I needed a relationship, maybe I needed to feel loved unconditionally. But man, nobody told me there'd be work involved. This is why Cardinal Richelieu drowned cats and loved kittens. Short term, these are the people who buy from pet shops (and therefore puppy mills, off the soapbox now) and drop the thing off 6 months later at an animal shelter. If not the side of the road. Long term, these are the people whose dog answers the door and decides whether or not you can come in. Remember Diane Whipple? Yeah, those Cain Corsos were owned by some clueless f- er, jerks. These people remain eternally tormented, but are too busy or whatever to try and learn how to solve their problem. Sit near them, and be prepared to listen to some not-so-humorous disaster stories about how Fido bit their daughter in the face and had to be put down. Probably the most dangerous kind of pet owner, but also the most common, I'd have to say.

Aside from grabbing and shaking these morons, I'd like to ask them questions. Like, do you know dogs actually descended from wolves? Or that cats can breed like rabbits, in literally about the same time/sexual maturity? Or that horses are prey animals, with a fight or flight instinct? DO YOU CARE? Odds are, the answer to both is no. Don't even get me started on whether people researched that Rottweilers were cattle dogs, not fighting dogs. (Or that pit bull terriers WERE fighting dogs, not cattle dogs! Pit bull. Get it? A dog that fights, or is pitted, against bulls in a pit, like bull-baiting.) Or the why behind animal behavior. God, no. Nobody wants to grasp that dogs roll in smelly things to mask their scent out of an old lupine instinct, or that cats sharpen their claws and rub on people out of old territory-marking instincts. Anyone wanna hazard a guess about why terriers dig? Would anyone believe it was a human's fault somewhere back there?

Animal psychology and such is a very interesting subject. For example, I'm way over in Pavlov's way of thinking, but my brother is big on behaviorism. He read a theory that proposed dogs exist in a state of perpetual hopefulness, anticipating that any second now something great is going to happen. It accounts for their optimism, but also why the first time you feed them at the table, they will sit and wait forever for it to happen again. Isn't that fascinating to consider? It's at least a step in attempting to figure the why of dog. (As Parelli/Roberts/Lyons are the why of horses, just as a shameless nod in their direction.) The human condition is all about the search for understanding; how can we call ourselves human if we have no desire or curiosity for connection?

If you own a pet and can't understand it (or it bugs the ever living crap out of you), I bet you have bad human relationships, too. Because you do the same thing: you don't bother to understand someone else's needs or perspective, and don't bother to find out why they are the way they are. Animals are energy readers; trust me: your dog knows how you feel better than you do. Animals have the whole non-judgmental thing going for them, the perpetual innocent state. Just don't make the mistake of projecting onto them, because their tabula rasa is not blank. It should be about respect, about enjoyment, about connecting with another living thing. If your horse kicks you, or you cat scratches you in the middle of a playfight, or your dog jumps up on you: something's wrong in the relationship. Figure it the hell out.

You're the one who's human.