Lee Cataluna: Man’s best friendship has become obsessive

Old Yeller would not be riding in a shopping cart yipping at other Walmart shoppers.

Lassie was too busy rescuing people to go to restaurants.

The two hounds in “Where the Red Fern Grows” could not have been more loved by their owner, but they stayed outside Grandpa’s store.

And Benji. Oh, that cute Benji. Original Benji had agency. He loved people, but he was cool on his own.

These are fictional dogs, but their lasting appeal is that they captured the relationship between dogs and people — dogs with full lives who loved their people and people will full lives who loved their dogs. Those relationships now seem old-fashioned.

Today humans’ relationships with their dogs can sometimes seem needy and enmeshed. Hawaii needs to get a grip on the always-and-everywhere obsession with dogs.

Not the Instagram accounts devoted to dogs or the Facebook videos of dogs doing cute things. Those can be small blessings during a stressful day. Not the doggie bakeries and the doggie day spas and doggie clothing lines and all that. Not even the many expensive brands of organic, non-GMO gourmet dog foods, many of which seem more nutritionally balanced than the typical school lunch. How somebody wants to pamper their pet is their own private business.

What has gotten out of control is this idea that everybody needs to accommodate every dog owner. The balance is skewed, and the rights of people who want to be with their dogs every moment of the day infringe on the rights of people who don’t like dogs, are truly afraid of dogs or just don’t want to share public space with other people’s pets. The onus now falls on the person who prefers to not have dogs in public places to speak up and risk being thought of as rude or somehow bigoted.

Of course, trained serv­ice dogs should be accommodated everywhere so that they can help their owner as they have been taught to do. This is not about that. (And shame on the people who pretend that their dogs are trained service dogs when they’re not.)

It’s about the perceived relationship between human and dog that has changed as people become less social, more urban, less likely to talk to people and more likely to rage-Tweet or post wordless emojis on social media. Dogs are no longer best friends; they’re seen as fur-children, soul mates, heavenly emissaries that should be treated better than we treat other people, better than we treat ourselves.

Pet dogs are often the reason homeless people say they don’t want to go into a shelter, and the reaction is, “Oh, of course,” like that’s a reasonable excuse for putting up a tent on a public sidewalk.

It’s possible to love dogs but think they don’t belong in public places. It’s not unreasonable to want to shop, dine or see a movie in a dog-free zone. It is unreasonable to expect the entire community to welcome your dog wherever you go.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.