Pet Peeves: Dogs, Vets, Poop Bags, and the Owners Who Treat Their Animals Like Soulmates

It's Tuesday, which means it's time for another edition of the column that has blown off more steam than a 19th-century locomotive, The Gripe Report!

Believe it or not, I was having a bit of a hard time thinking of something to gripe about this week, a phenomenon we refer to in the biz as "Griper's Block."

It happens to the best of us, and sometimes you have to wait for inspiration to strike.

Have A Gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

I was racking my brain when I heard some crying on the other side of my desk.

It was my French bulldog, Carl. He was whining to go outside… despite having gone outside 20 minutes earlier.

"I'm trying to work, Carl!" I said, as though he understood English. He doesn't, but he might know French. We haven't tried that yet. "I'm trying to think of a hook for this week's Gripe Report. You know the column that has been regarded as some of the finest complaining anywhere on the Internet."

Carl just stared at me, as he is wont to do.

Then it hit me.

"Hey, we'll talk about pets this week!"

And so, after I let him out (again), I got to work on this here pet-focused edition of The Gripe Report!

I'm blaming Paris Hilton for starting the trend of people bringing their dogs everywhere.  (Photo by Phil McCarten/Getty Images)

People Who Bring Their Dogs Everywhere

I’m not breaking any new ground here, but the fact that after all these years we’re still talking about it just goes to show how far the toothpaste is out of the tube on this one.

I like my dog. I’m pretty sure he likes – or at least tolerates – me, but he doesn’t need to go everywhere I do, nor would I want him to.

Sometimes, leaving the pooch at home with I Love Lucy reruns on the TV (which is an actual thing we do; he’s probably seen more William Frawley than a dog has in the last 60 years) is so that I can get a break.

At home, we’re constantly hovering over him to make sure that he’s not rubbing his eyes and/or wiener (that’s a French bulldog thing) because if he does, he could wind up having to go to the vet.

Does he rub himself when we’re gone? Sure, but how am I supposed to know?

So that’s why I don’t take my dog everywhere, but I think a lot of the folks who do, just do it for attention. They want everyone to look at them and wonder, "Who the hell is bringing their dog here?" They just crave attention so badly they don’t care how they get it, and it turns out bringing a non-service dog to a movie theater is one way to do that.

Now, I understand that leaving your pet at home can sometimes turn into a bit of a pain, which leads us to…

Pet Logistics

Anytime we want to do anything, whether that’s going out to dinner or going on vacation, there’s always some discussion about dog logistics.

If we’re gone for four hours or less, no problemo.

More than that? Then we might need to call someone to let the li’l fella out so that we don’t get home and immediately have to start scrubbing rugs because, for some reason, our dog can hold his bladder all night, but if we go see a movie, suddenly this becomes an issue.

That turns into us having to make sure that the pet-sitter is available before we plan a trip, and if she's not available, then we have to start digging into contingency plans.

Can my brother stay at our house? Are any friends available to take care of the dog? Can we maybe just play dumb and let the dog stay in our hotel room with us?

I know this is just one of the many "responsibilities" that come with pet ownership, but this is The Gripe Report, so I'm going to complain about it.

"Yup, just as I suspected… he needs to be put on some very expensive food that we happen to sell right here in the waiting room." (Getty Images)

Veterinarians

If you've got a pet, odds are they will need some kind of veterinary care, but you really need to go in there with your BS meter turned to its highest possible setting.

I can't tell you how many times we've taken our dog to the vet and the vet asks what we feed him, so we tell them, and they say, "That's pretty good stuff, but we actually recommend Healthy Dog Super Fun Times Food (or whatever it's called), we actually carry it so we can send you home with a bad today."

Of course, you have to pay for that bag, and then, of course, when I go out into the lobby, I see a massive display for Healthy Dog Super Fun Times Food in the waiting room, because, of course, they'd recommend the food that's giving them kickbacks.

I would too! 

We went to a vet who said that our French Bulldog needed nasal surgery ASAP, and wanted us to drive him to a specialist an hour and a half away.

Then we saw another vet and asked about this, and she was like, "Meh, he's fine."

Like anything, you've got to trust your gut… and nothing promotes a gut for your furry best friend like Healthy Dog Super Fun Times Food (*fine print* a subsidiary of DuPont)! 

Training

Training a pet can be so frustrating.

A while back, I was trying to teach my dog to be better on walks and not veer off the sidewalk to sniff anything another dog has brushed past in the last week.

So, on one of the longer stretches of sidewalk, I would work with him to stay on the sidewalk, and he eventually started doing pretty well.

But then I realized that he was only staying on track on that single stretch of sidewalk. Every other one? He was zigging and zagging all over the place.

There was no chance that I was going to try to train him to stay on track on every bit of sidewalk we had, so I gave up.

He won the battle… and honestly, the war too.

I feel like everyone has these moments where they try their hardest to train a pet to do something, and then they just throw their hands up and quit.

I have my suspicions that dogs know what they’re doing and are trolling us intentionally.

…I’m on to them.
 

Keeping exotic pets sometimes ends with you hacing a long running Las Vegas residency, but most of the time it does not.  (Photo by Denise Truscello/WireImage)

Exotic Pets For Attention

For some people, dogs and cats are too pedestrian.

We call these people "douches."

I can't stand when people get a bizarre pet for the sole purpose of telling people they have a bizarre pet.

"Oh, you took your dog for a walk. That actually reminds me – I have to run home and feed my capybara… Mhm, I have a capybara, it's one of the largest rodents on Earth. I'm actually wearing socks with little capybaras on them right now…"

Dude, just get a goldfish and stop trying to make this your entire personality.

A lot of times, it just ends up being selfish. I mean, sure, I've always wanted a chimpanzee that I could dress up in cargo shorts, a Flyers shirt, and a backwards ballcap like he's just one of the bros, but I know that this is not the life that's fit for a chimp.

They like to swing from trees and wing their feces at each other.

That's why there really aren't any stories about people keeping chimps that end well.

You either get Travis the Chimp ripping off people's faces or you get Michael Jackson's chimp, Bubbles, who is sitting at a sanctuary in Florida and has developed a hatred of cameras.

Neither is good.

Although in between them would be Elvis's chimpanzee, Scatter.

Go google Scatter. He was nuts. 

The Dog Poop Situation 

Just about every modern technological advancement has come as a means of convenience.

So why, in the Year of our Lord 2025, am I still following my dog around with a small plastic bag to grab the poo he just dropped on the neighbor’s yard?

There has to be a better way than me having to pick it up and then walk around the neighborhood with a bag of s—t in my hand like the world’s worst part favor.

I feel like we should spend more time trying to figure out a way to get dogs to rip deuces in the toilet.

I know that means doing away with millions of years' worth of instincts, but at this point, domestic dogs are so far removed from their wild ancestors that I think they can handle it.

It would take some training, but you just need some sort of platform for the dog to stand on and — kerplunk!

Then you rig something up so a milk bone shoots out of some dispenser when he flushes.

See how easy that was? Now, someone figure out how to make this a reality because I’m sick of bagging dookie.

…

Well, I'm parched. That was some serious griping.

In the meantime, how about you send in your own pet gripes or any other gripes you may have (especially if it's about how jealous you are of my chiseled good looks) and perhaps it'll show up in a future edition of The Gripe Report!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com