Dog Daycare Etiquette

Maybe Bella and I are the jerks here...?

The daycare drop-off/pick-up etiquette seems to be pretty well known in the doggy daycare community: You wait with your dog in your car or at least a respectful distance away while the first person there brings their dog inside to be dropped off with the daycare person. Then you bring your dog inside.

This morning was the first time that I wanted to throttle a fellow daycare patron!

I had Bella all strapped into her vest, leash on and out of the car when this snooty lady with her snooty kid and their fluffy white dog came clambering out of their over-sized $50k SUV and continued to come towards us.

Now, Bella isn't aggressive, but like many dogs she can be leash-reactive...especially in an already exciting environment like daycare. So, Bella is barking her fool head off at the other dog - and the snooty-family keeps on coming! And Mrs. Snooty is looking at me like OH MY GOD! What is WRONG with your DOG?! Yet, they KEEP COMING behind us towards the door where there's a tiny vestibule to wait for the girl to come out and get the dogs.

Bella is still barking like a mad-dog and the lady looks at me like I have some kind of evil spawn who will attack and kill her dog when they get inside. Yet, they're STILL coming inside - and I had to say, "could you wait outside for one second, please?!?!?" And she looked at me like I was a horrible person. Still with that snooty, superior, holier than thou, shocked that we are even there look on her face saying "oh my gosh! wow! oh my gosh!" I said, "sorry - it's the leash - she's fine."

I admit it was totally embarrassing, but this lady obviously knows nothing about dogs. Every other daycare member either knows to keep the dogs away from each other when they're on a leash - especially when one is being loud and obnoxious - and those people laugh it off and understand that it's a dog thing. Not some evil hound of hell who's going to feast on your Fluffy as soon as they're in the same area together.

Ugh.