The Crazy Dog Owners Who Make You Seem Normal

Andy Kryza/Thrillist
Andy Kryza/Thrillist

America has always had a thing for dogs, and not just the coney kind. They're our best friends. They're our most loyal companions. And they give us all somebody else to blame when we fart. They're kind of the best. 

But dog owners? Well, they're not always the best. In fact, some of them are kind of the worst. These are the dog owners who deserve to have their licenses revoked.

Flickr/Crystal Agozzino

The furry fashionista

This dog’s wardrobe costs could clothe an entire third world nation. Probably the same one whose children were tasked with making the $400 cashmere sweater/hat combo that your Pomeranian will later chew to pieces. Probably out of spite.
 

The off-leash idealist

Yes, in a perfect world, everybody knows that your dog is extremely friendly and is just running up to people to say hi and deliver daffodil-scented kisses. But sometimes, what they actually see is a potentially feral beast bounding toward them at attack speed, saliva dripping from a mouth that just discovered a mound of cat shit in a patch of flowers. Which is to say, not everybody’s a dog person. So maybe leash it.
 

The baller

This man can toss a tennis ball farther than most people can fire a Chuckit!, and he manages to do so for approximately five straight hours, resulting in the world's happiest dog. He may or may not be the kid from Rookie of the Year, all grown up.

Flickr/Wally Gobetz

The over-ambitious dog walker

We get that you’re being paid per dog for your job, but you might want to limit your terrifying dog cluster to 30 at a time, for the sake of everybody you encounter.
 

The outsiders

This family loves its giant, frightening dog. They just don’t like it when it’s inside the house. So it stays outside. All day, barking. All night, while they’re asleep, barking. But they love it so much!
 

The treat machine

Every dog in the park flocks directly to her, and for good reason. She’s got a pocketful of treats. More specifically, it’s a smorgasbord of treats for dogs of all shapes and sizes. Hell, she even brings one for the labradoodle that’s gluten free.
 

The dog-park abuser

To this wonderful paragon of responsible ownership, the dog park doubles as doggie daycare, and they’ll blissfully show up, drop the dog over the fence, then wander off, leaving other people to deal with their animal as it attacks and humps every dog in the area, then takes three or four atomic dumps in the middle of the play space. Best-case scenario: he’s on his phone in the corner. Worst-case scenario: he’s at work for the day.

Flickr/This Year's Love

The hump-day auteur

Yep. Dogs like to randomly hump things. But maybe put down your camera phone and get it off that lady’s leg.
 

The social media star-maker

Ever since the dog was a puppy, it’s had an Instagram, Tumblr, Blogspot, Facebook account, and was briefly on Tinder in the hopes that it would gather a cult following and start generating meme-based income, just like Bub and the Shiba Sommelier. This person is basically the pet owner equivalent of Honey Boo Boo’s mom.
 

The proud parent

The dog is constantly subjected to baby talk and intense cuddles. The owner, meanwhile, is blissfully unaware that each time she calls the dog her child, she’s making us envision her conceiving her progeny with a canine. It looks adorable in that BabyBjörn though!

Flickr/Ana Fuentes

The life partner

The whole “man’s best friend” thing is personified by this dude, who takes his dog everywhere, from hiking trips to fine-dining meals. That's all fantastic, until he inevitably berates business owners for their antiquated, exclusionary practices of not allowing an animal that pees wherever it goes into a business. Eventually, he will get a tattoo of his dog. Disturbingly, the dog will be forced to get a tattoo of him, too.
 

The purebred elitist

Oh, sure, that dog’s beautiful, and you exclusively own nothing but purebred animals, taking great pains to make sure the dog only mingles with others of fine stock and pedigree. But consider this: if that dog were a person, it’d be so inbred it’d make the Royal Family’s seem like the most sprawling family tree in history.
 

The shame monger

If your dog wasn’t rescued from an ISIS-run puppy labor camp, you’re a horrible piece of human garbage that has no regard for animals at all. 
 

Casanova

He got the dog for one reason and one reason only: to bring it to parks in order to meet girls. And it works sometimes, too... until he forgets what dog is his and blows it.

Andy Kryza/Thrillist

The fine-diner

Look, we’re all for dogs in restaurants… where they’re allowed. But we’re a little weirded out when the dog sits at the table with you, eating off a plate as if you just met it on Tinder and you’re trying to impress it.
 

The aggressive owner of an aggressive dog

Hey, look, brah, why don’t you mind your business and just worry about your dog. You know, your dog who’s pinned to the ground underneath his 150lb rot who’s “just playing” by locking its teeth on your terrier's throat. You got a problem with it? That’s what dogs do, you know? If your dog can’t handle playing rough, maybe don’t bring it to the park.

Flickr/Joshua Ganderson

The beach bomber

Whoever taught people the philosophy that you don’t need to clean up dog shit on a beach should be forced to be buried in the sand… sand that his dog has sullied like a cat in the world’s biggest litter box.
 

The clothes-liner

That extra-long leash sure gives the dog extra freedom… to dominate the sidewalk and take more people out at the knees than an entire defensive line.
 

Cesar Millan

She’s checked out every dog-training book in the library. She’s watched every episode of Dog Whisperer, including the DVD extra features. And she has no qualms with disciplining the shit out of your dog, despite the fact that you’ve never met her and she’s counteracting a lifetime of your own training. Tssssssp!
 

Alpha

This man’s dog is his shadow. If follows him everywhere. It obeys his every command. It brings him the newspaper in the morning and a beer at night, and he needs only glance at it out of the side of his eye for it to stop whatever it’s doing and come to his side.
 

Omega

Exactly the same as Alpha, except the species are swapped.

Flickr/istolethetv

The accessorizer

Your small, rat-like dog belongs neither in a movie theater nor in a small purse that you carry around everywhere.
 

The apartment kenneler

He has somehow managed to fit four dogs of varying size in his studio apartment, and leaves them while he works his 12-hour day, commutes an hour, and hits happy hour. The sounds emerging from his abode are the stuff of nightmares.
 

The garden waterer

His dog will urinate only on the freshest of produce, the brightest of flowers, and the greenest of grass. He is frequently found strolling community gardens, and seldom looks down at his dog in order to maintain deniability when sighted.
 

The anti-disciplinarian

We get that you don’t want to yell at your dog, but between the thing tearing up your friend’s couch, humping the neighbor’s cat, peeing on everything it sees, and barking until its throat bleeds, maybe it’s time for a little obedience school?

Flickr/Virginia State Parks

The half-measure pooper scooper

So, wait... You took the time to bag the dog poop, then… left it on the grass, 3ft from the garbage can? Is this some sort of modern art statement? Even worse are the people who do this on hiking trails, claiming they don’t want to walk six miles with a bag of poop in their hands, so they’ll pick it up when they get back. Thanks a ton, John Muir. You’ve made our portrait of nature complete with your random bags of feces.

The lookalike

Do people who look exactly like their animal plan it that way, or is it some weird part of evolution that causes a bulldog’s owner’s cheeks to sag and bottom teeth to protrude like that over the course of their companionship?

The service-animal faker

Dude, we get that you don’t want to board your dog when you travel, but we’re pretty sure that three-legged, half-blind Chihuahua isn’t going to be guiding you anywhere, so you can take off your sunglasses now.

The anti-Bob Barker

You don’t believe in neutering the dog? Totally cool. But that doesn’t mean you constantly need to point out its gigantic balls. We can see them clacking together perfectly well from 200 yards away.

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Andy Kryza is a senior editor at Thrillist who sincerely apologizes to his dog for stuffing him in a BabyBjörn for this story... again. Follow him to apologetic treats @apkryza.