There's an awful lot of people around who are no cleaner and poorer mannered than many dogs. I don't mind dogs in a restaurant as long as they are well mannered. I have far less patience for most peoples' kids in public establishments than I ever have with dogs that were brought in.
A week or so ago, my wife and I stopped for an early dinner at a place in a upper middle-class community on the outskirts of Sacramento. Seated a few booths away were two "moms" who looked to be in their mid-30s. One had her dog with her and the other one fairly well behaved kid and to screaming/yelling/tantruming brats.
The dog was very well behaved, sitting or lying on the floor next to her "mom's" seat and out of the way of foot traffic. The only time it made a noise was when one of the brats kicked it while yelling and jumping around between the mom booth and the kid booth. We didn't mind the dog being there at all, but really wished the mom with the brats would have cared enough about them and teaching them how to properly behave in public to take them to the restroom for well-deserved spankings.
Just A. Surveyor, post: 454785, member: 12855 wrote: So we are sitting there and in walks a ginormous fat woman with her "seeing eye dog" it was a chihuahua on a leash and the little dog had a red "seeing eye dog" vest on.
Now it was apparent that the woman wasn't blind but she was putting up a show anyway. Well she went to the food bar with her dining partner and she had the little "seeing eye dog" cradled in her arm while she was piling her plate with chicken wings and kielbasa. While she was up there the mongrel had a sneezing fit. Mind you the woman was cradling the dog and because of that it was food level and sneezing all over the food while she was cooing after it.
I have a problem with those posterior orifices who put a service dog vest on their unruly mutts to try to game the system to bring their canine brats into stores and restaurants. Invariably, these lying cheaters have very poorly trained dogs that are poorly suited to any kind of service and absolutely useless as service animals.
Those folks are generally the same type who, if they had kids, would be those overly permissive parents who think that any obnoxious behavior out of anyone under the age of 12 is OK and that everyone around them should have the patience, grace and good manners to put up with any amount of tantrums, screaming, or running and jumping about that their brats might engage in.
What gets me is why they hold everyone around them to a behavioral standard that they refuse to instill into their own children. Well mannered adults are such because they were taught to be well mannered as they grew up.
Paul D, post: 454791, member: 323 wrote: I once had a wise man tell me not to worry so much about my kids behavior at restaurants when they were younger because 1) 90% of the people in the restaurant have had young children and understand and 2) the other 10% can go #*$@ themselves. Now people who act as though their dog is the same as a child, well....
It depends upon the level and amount of misbehavior that the parents tolerate. If the parent acts to correct bad behavior, whether that warrant only a gentle admonition or a trip to the car or restroom for a timeout or spank, is what really makes the difference for me. It's as much or more about the parents' behavior as it is about the kids.
Kids will be kids and will act up and need correction from time to time. Most, perhaps 90% do understand that. Nearly all of them will exercise an extra measure of patience as long as the parent isn't simply letting the behavior go on without addressing it. A parent of small children need not be embarrassed by every little outburst or other obnoxiousness by their kid. But if they tolerate constant noisemaking, tantrums, etc. without acting to correct them and expect everyone around to put up with it with a good attitude, then their behavior is worse and even more rude than is their kid's behavior.
Why should others be subjected to the noise and commotion of an uncontrolled child? The refusal to control one's kids is no worse than a table full of teenagers sitting next to a family with small kids and loudly dropping f-bombs in every sentence.
I'd much rather have someone's dog calmly sitting next a couple feet away in a restaurant than have to put up with either the overly permissive parents or a table full of teenagers who are the result of overly permissive parenting.
I have to admit, I got excited when I read the title of this thread, but then I was disappointed that it wasn't about axes.
When I was a lot younger my parents would take us to a restaurant where they had a dog roaming around. If you put a dollar in his mouth he'd go to the bar, get a slim jim and 50 cents change. Then he'd return to your table where you could feed him the slim jim. He was fat, didn't live that long, and when you paid your tab your change was always wet with slobber.
