Last week, I received a very interesting letter from a reader from the US commenting on an article that was written more than 18 months ago. The article was about my ongoing quest to try and normalize my relationship with dogs and to make it as neutral as possible.
I was really happy with the letter. The sender wrote that after reading my article she now understood as to why most Saudis had troubled relationships with dogs and it was very hard for us to consider them pets. In Saudi Arabia, people seldom pet dogs and for most of us they are monsters who would bite us without hesitation.
At the same time, the letter made me think a lot. I have a neighbor who really loves her dog. She treats the dog like a child. She cares so much about him, my boys adore the dog and they love to walk him. When I used to hear my neighbor giving my boys instructions about how to care about him, I used to feel like she is talking about a human being not a pet. To be honest, I used to find it weird. Sometimes, I used to think that why would someone get so attached to animals? It took me a while until I realized how ignorant I had been. My boys after nagging me for a very long time convinced me to get them a cat. Well, I was the one who decided to bring it and I chose it just to prove to them that I am a cool mom who would never be bothered by animals. Since the beginning, I fell in love with the kitten. Over some time, I started to get irritated from people who would express their disgust from her or showing nonsense fear from her. I then realized why people got angry and defensive when I showed fear or disgust while noticing their pet dogs. It takes so much understanding and compassion to accept that people are afraid from your lovely little kitten, you tend to treat your pet as your own child and if they misbehave you get defensive, those feelings are just normal. It is true that at the end I decided to get rid of the cat because she was not obedient but I admit that I miss her. Well, I know that its hard to accept animals if we have old phobias but at least we should understand how important they are to their minders. It is polite not to show disgust and if we have phobia we can simply express that and usually people understand.
