This title is a tad misleading, but it does involve something called Sherman, and it’s a dick. Again, I don’t think that sentence helped much.
If you are a dog walker/owner, do you have that one dog you meet on a walk that you just don’t like? Like, they’re not even a bad dog necessarily and the owner isn’t terrible really, if you really force yourself to think rationally?
For me it’s a fat Beagle. Called Sherman. And he’s a dick.
I don’t know what it is about Sherman but he infuriates me. I don’t think it’s helped much by the fact that his owners walk him on a flexi lead, and allow him into the road and to do what he likes. I also don’t think the fact that Sherman is quite a portly beagle, and his harness is a beige colour and is ill-fitted.
I don’t walk my dogs much on the roads anymore, I tend to take them places where they can run about and act like lunatics away from me and I can pretend I don’t own these demons. However, I still see Sherman frequently, as I’m driving about and he still bugs me. Considering he is walked on a Flexi, Sherman walks very slowly. He isn’t that fat that he can’t walk properly, he just thinks he f*cking owns the place and that is an attitude I can’t get behind, especially for a portly Beagle in a beige harness. I have been walking my dogs behind Sherman and one of his owners before, and it was almost painful. I walk quite quickly, and even more so with Einstein (because to him it’s not worth going anywhere unless it’s 110mph), but here we were stuck in a doggy traffic jam created by Sherman. Einstein is totally disinterested in most dogs, so he wasn’t the issue in this incident. Sherman however, is quite mouthy. The owner was quite happily bumbling along in front, Sherman hanging right back and just looking over his shoulder like “I’m cool, I got this”, which I think was the first thing that annoyed me. I don’t need an overweight, middle-aged beagle thinking it owns me. Sherman then starts to bark at us, and proceeds to lose his shit. Rather than be polite or courteous, his owner looks back over his shoulder and gives the exact same look to me and Einstein and says “come on, Sherman” and then decides to go even slower. I was already stressed that day, and after this I decided to turn around. I had been stuck behind Sherman for 15minutes too long.
Another, more recent incident occurred a couple months ago when I walked the dogs one morning on the field. There was a thick fog and you couldn’t see shit. My dogs are pretty good off lead, and I know they can find me. So here I was in this Silent Hill type scenario, and I hear a faint cry of “Sherman!”. I froze. A rage filled me like no other before. I couldn’t see Sherman, and I felt like I was being surrounded by demons, my dogs coming back to me in a panic. “Sherman! Sherman!” I was scared, I knew he was here somewhere, but where?! All of a sudden, a chubby beagle in a beige harness appeared directly in front of me. My first thought was fuck, my dogs ignored him and I decided if I ignored him, he might go away.
I was wrong. I was plagued by Sherman for what seemed to feel like an eternity. He just kept following me and barking and being rude. I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of his dimwitted owner in this fog, but no such luck. I got near the car park and I saw this shadowy figure, he turned to see me and said “Sherman!”. But guess what? Sherman wasn’t listening, so the owner had to grab and pull him away from us, I had had enough of being barked at to be honest. I don’t know how Einstein felt, but he was looking at me like he really wanted to hurt Sherman and I don’t blame him.
One thing I noticed about Sherman’s owner, he was wearing headphones. How could you possibly think on the foggiest morning ever that is would be a good idea to eliminate yet another one of your senses? How bloody useless are some people?!
And that’s about it really. I just felt like writing/venting about Sherman. It’s not an amusing anecdote, I saw Sherman early and I knew I had to relieve this rage before going to dinner tonight.
*I would like to add that I know my reasons, or lack of reasons, don’t mean Sherman is an actual dick. I just think he’s a dick, even though his owners probably love him … But then I think they’re dicks too.*