It’s a sunny afternoon and I decide to take my dog Jodi to the local dog park. There are two sides, a big dog side, and a small dog. My dog is about 30 lbs so I go to the big dog side this particular day. Many owners tend to chat instead of focusing on their dog, however, I try to keep my eyes on Jodi at all times.

It doesn’t take very long for some random Shepherd mix to befriend Jodi and become a little overly friendly. He begins to try and mount my dog and although my dog is spayed, I do like to separate dogs when they do this. As I reach for the other dog’s collar to pull him off, a lady starts screeching and running up to me.

Lady: “Do not touch my precious boy! I will have you arrested.”

She has raised her voice enough that she’s gotten the attention of most people in the park by now. I let the dog go and instead scoop my dog up, a perk of her only weighing 30 pounds.

Me: “There’s no need for all of that ma’am. I just was trying to separate them so no harm is done—”

Lady: “Why would you separate them? I brought my boy here so he could have puppies! My grandson wants a puppy for his birthday, so I need to get this done today.”

I’ve started to walk away but I stop in my tracks and look at the dog again. Sure enough, he’s not neutered. It’s sometimes frowned upon to bring intact dogs to the park, especially for incidents like this. Luckily, her shouting has attracted quite the crowd and I have a couple of people run up to me.

Man: “Lady, what the h*** are you talkin’ bout? You can’t just bring your dog here to mount our pets and hope they have babies. That’s sick!”

All the while, the Shepherd is trying to jump up to reach my dog who is still in my arms. I raise my knee to gently move the big dog away as he’s scratching me with his claws. Wrong move, apparently, as the lady starts swearing and bringing out her phone to call the police.

Lady: “I told you not to touch my boy Roman! I’m calling the cops right now to arrest you for animal cruelty.”

She typed into her phone and started speaking to someone, gesturing in my direction with a loathsome expression on her face. I just shrugged and walked out of the park. If she was calling the police, then that was her hill to die on. We haven’t been back to that park much since then, but I did buy my girl a big bone as a reward for not putting up with dog park politics.

I am walking four dogs (two are mine and two are my mom’s). While they are all well-behaved, I do have a bit of trouble maneuvering them around things since they try to go in different directions, this is made more difficult because my boy was going blind.

A woman and two guys are talking on the sidewalk as I try to get by them when my dog runs into the woman. It’s twilight and what little bit of vision he had left was not helpful since she is wearing all black. I start to apologize but before I can say or do anything, she starts screaming at the top of her lungs.

Woman: “Help I’m being attacked! The pit bull is trying to kill me.”

I pause in shock and look down at my dog, who looks back and forth as, like he was trying to figure out what he ran into, before taking another step and running into her again.

Woman: “Oh my god it attacked me again. Help! Ow! Help! am I bleeding, help! Ow!”

She bends down and grabs at her legs.

The guys she is with just look down at my dog who has given up and just sitting down. The other three are straining the leashes to get as far from them as possible. It’s been a few seconds and she has not stopped screaming.

Me: “Lady get a grip, my dog is not attacking you. He’s blind, be bumped into you but doesn’t even know where you are.”

Woman: *Instantly stops and stands up.* “Oh, he’s blind? I guess I’m fine then.”

She goes back to her conversation like nothing happened. One of the guys she was with rolled his eyes but other than that they did not react or say anything at all during the entire exchange. I managed to lead my dog around her and walked away completely confused as to what had just happened.

Back when I first got my pup, I made sure she was socialized around kids and other dogs. She was a really sweet pup and wouldn’t bite or even nip at anything, except sticks.

Miss wife sees her, sees me with her leash, and comes barrelling towards me, all before starting to screech:

Wife: “Put your d*** fighting dog on the leash, it’s biting the kids!”

She wasn’t. She was getting some butt scratches.

At that moment the little white dog of them bites one of the kids who ignored the growls and miss wife goes full-on berserk at me:

Wife: “Your dog was terrorizing my sweet little darling!”

She wasn’t, she didn’t even look in the direction.

I just blinked, shook my head, called my pup who came trotting happily over and said, while leaving:

Me: “You might wanna take a look at your kids, they just fell in poop.”

I work as a receptionist in a hotel in a small seaside town in Tuscany famous for its beaches and thermal baths. A customer books a reservation for all of August, the busiest tourist month of all the season. The hotel accepts small dogs or animals that can stay in a cage: for example, little birds.

Before the confirmation of the booking, we send an email asking if the customer has animals. They write back saying that they have a meerkat with them, but they assure us that it will stay in the cage when they are at the beach.

The manager decides to accept the reservation, even though it isn’t a typical animal, with the clause that the customer has to pay all the reservation period in advance. The idea is that the customer would never accept such a proposal, but the manager is wrong, and the customer pays everything immediately.

I send an email to the customer with the confirmation of the booking, as well as all the information and phone numbers if they want to reserve the deck chair and umbrella at one of the bathhouses near the hotel. I suggest they do so as soon as possible and, after that, I don’t think any more about the strange reservation.

August comes and the couple with the meerkat arrives with a small cage and the animal on a leash like a small dog. This conversation happens after the check-in.

Me: “Have you booked a bathhouse around here as suggested? I can give you the directions there if you need them.”

Customer’s Husband: “No, why?”

Me: “We are in full season; it is very difficult to find a place now.”

Customer: “We read the email, but we thought that you were too dramatic, so we didn’t do it.”

Me: *Still smiling* “Not a problem. There are some free beaches around here. They are a little crowded, but if you don’t mind, they are very nice. Remember only that your pet has to remain inside the cage, closed, when you are out so that it can’t escape from the room or dirty it.”

Customer: “Don’t worry; we will take the meerkat with us to the beach, and we are sure that we will find a place to stay in a bathhouse near the hotel.”

Me: “Are you sure? I don’t think that any bathhouse will accept the meerkat. It is not a dog, and as written in the mail that I sent you, only two bathhouses accept animals.”

Customer: *Starting to look at me as if I’m dumb* “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing! They will not dare to reject us.”

The next afternoon, the customer’s husband arrives at the reception desk really upset.

Customer’s Husband: “This place is impossible! It’s supposed to be a very famous tourist town! They don’t want tourists! We hate it here and we want to leave tomorrow!”

Me: “I’m so sorry. How can help you to change your mind?”

Customer’s Husband: *Even more upset* “We walked all the morning to find a place in a bathhouse, but they were all full or they don’t accept pets! And wherever we went, all the other tourists wanted to take selfies or photos with our meerkat, and all the small kids wanted to pet it, calling it Timon!”

Me: *Trying to remain serious* “I’m so sorry, but I think that seeing a meerkat is something that doesn’t happen every day, and as I told you yesterday and I wrote in the email that I sent you at the moment of the reservation, we are in full season—”

Customer’s Husband: “I don’t care! My wife thinks that everyone is so rude in this place!”

Me: “I’m really sorry. The only thing that I can suggest for you is that your pet remains in your room inside the cage while you enjoy the sea. I can try to find a place at the bathhouse in front of us with a special discount for the inconvenience.”

Customer’s Husband: *Even more upset* “My wife would never put her beloved pet in a cage; how dare you even suggest it?! I will talk to your manager, and we want to leave tomorrow with a full refund!”

He went away, muttering about the rudeness of everyone. I called the manager and told him all about the conversation, and he assured me not to worry and that he had the situation under control.

The next day, I asked the manager about it.

The couple decided to leave, even though the manager refused to give them a refund because they had been well advised by email about the need to reserve a bathhouse before their arrival, and it is not the fault of the hotel if people wanted to take photos of their pet.

While they were discussing that, the customers left the door of their room open and the meerkat was (obviously) not in the cage. The pet went missing and the wife started to scream and cry trying to find the animal. All of the hotel’s staff started to look for the meerkat everywhere, even outside the hotel. My manager instead decided to enter the room, and there the poor meerkat was – terrified by all that noise – simply hiding under the bed.

When the wife saw the manager with her missing pet, she started to hug him and thanked him, calling him her savior and superhero.

After they left, my manager’s new rule became: “No meerkats allowed!” but all the staff started to call him the savior of meerkats!

I run a dog grooming facility that operates out of the same building as (very ethical) dog breeders. Sometimes I hand off medications for owners of expecting mothers:

Owner: *Walks in.* “Hey, [My Name]!”

Me: “Hi, [Owner’s Name]! Your dog’s medication is there on the counter for you. All the instructions are on the piece of paper.”

The instructions are pretty clear, indicating dosage, further instruction for the dog’s pregnancy, etc…

Owner: *Looks over the syringe of de-worming medication.* “Oh, so I give this to her anally right?”

After a moment of stunned silence, in the quietest voice possible while still being clear:

Me: “No… Orally…”

Owner: *Kind of laughs it off, shrugging.* “I’ve never done this before, I don’t know how this works.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure the breeder wouldn’t be asking you to give your dog an enema.”