I’ll say it, I’m not a huge dog person. They’re fine, I have a mediocre relationship with them. My boyfriends mom has two food obsessed, badly behaved labs. She thinks it’s cute and silly when they act barbaric and relentlessly beg at the dinner table. One time she said she “can’t believe people let their kids sit in the bed of a pickup truck, or worse, dogs.” She bought an expensive monthly subscription called “bark box.” It’s a themed box full of an array of Chinese produced plastic toys, with themes like “sushi night” or “beach day.“ These toys contribute to the insane vet bill because ever since she subscribed one of the labs will vomit up blood? And plastic. All they do is frantically wait for her to get home, hunt every corner of the house for food and go absolutely crazy whenever they have the chance. She praises their bad behavior, they can do no wrong in her eyes. She’s not the only person I know like this. It makes me sick and I think lesser of anyone who has a relationship like this with their dogs. She’s controlling of them, obsessive, extremely defensive, calls them her sweet angels. Not only has it caused me to resent labs, but I am now nihilistic of American-style “dog lovers” or worse- “dog moms.” I’ve been made to feel like an asshole for not casually obsessing over dogs in social settings, but I can’t be the only one.