Seattle's Decline into Doggy Stupidity

I moved to Seattle from Montana after university and absolutely loved it—at first. When I arrived, it was before the 'doggy boom.' Back then, dogs were mainly pets for little old ladies or families with golden retrievers. But slowly, it felt like everyone decided they needed a dog.

By the time I worked at a large company, my manager and a coworker had dogs in the office that they had to manage all day. It felt absurd—what about people who don’t want to work around barking or the smell of dogs? Is that not a form of discrimination? If you didn’t want to be around dogs, you basically couldn’t work there.

Outside work, dog owners pressured city officials to turn every park into a dog park—or at least a 'dog recreation area'—but they’d just take over entire parks anyway. It got to the point where nearly every millennial (and probably now Gen Z) had a dog in their apartment or condo, and if you didn’t, you were criticized or even shunned. I saw people online calling non-dog owners 'creepy' as a way to belittle them.

That atmosphere of conformity and judgment turned me off to dog ownership completely. To me, having a dog is often the first warning sign of someone who’s ignorant, selfish, and unbalanced. I wouldn’t date a dog owner, and I wouldn’t want to become one.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?