Milo weighs approximately 12 pounds and most that is his poofy hair. Which by the way, he's got a new haircut and is looking more manly than his bad haircut of '10 which left him looking more like a princess than a rock star that Chase and I are grooming (pun intended, HA) to be.
But really, he's a little poodle with a big heart and loves everyone he's met. So it's baffling that when walking him on the streets and trails in Hangzhou, we get shrieks, halts in traffic, and people skidding across the pavement to avoid a confrontation with our more manly looking pooch. Girls are literally climbing over each other and act like you laid a dead rat on their open toed heels.
I love my dog. So being a good mother, I naturally give them dirty looks and tell them to relax in my mediocre Chinese. He's just a dog. He doesn't bite. And remember the 12 pounds? Almost 5 times smaller than the average Chinese girl!
The situation worsens when parents are with their children. They are naturally protective of their babies (sometimes even up to 12 years old, but the parents still treat them like 3 year olds.... another rant for later). Parents usually create a fear in the children when Milo and I are about 30 yards out and the children are often sent scampering behind the adult. This really gets to me, because it's a cultural fear. They just tell the children to stay away from dogs either because they are dangerous or because they are considered dirty.
So I've gone out of my way to stop, talk with them, especially directly to the child and introduce Milo to them. I even had a 10 year old tell me that I was lying to him that and that if he listened to me and petted Milo, it would still bite him. Outrageous.
Now I understand that Honeymuffer, extraordinary dog that she is, would not be as predictable around little ones because from a young age, I never had the chance to socialize her. She thinks little children look more and more like squirrels each day and would be good for herding and chasing. Well, Milo on the other hand grew up in a household of three children. So he's definitely primed for being what I call the Sensorial Ambassador.
Let me explain, I believe that each time I allow a child to pet Milo (maybe he's even their first dog to pet), that they experience something Sensorially that his/her parents aren't allowing them to experience. They rub his tail, maybe even grab and tug on it lightly. They feel the warmth of his body and the wetness of his tongue. These are all sensorial experiences that children in China are being robbed of.
Rarely do you see children here playing and looking for tadpoles. Even the grass here is off limits because parents think it will get them dirty or that there are too many chemicals sprayed all over. So when do children ever get to feel grass under their feet? Or when do they play in sandboxes? When do they experience having a pet in their household?
The way that animals are viewed is that they are merely a food source. Even in zoos, right here in Hangzhou, for example, children visiting throw rocks, sticks, trash at the caged animals. When they see a fish, they think of how good it is to eat. So Milo and I continue to break the barriers of ignorance, prejudice, and try to show children how wonderful it is to have a relationship with an animal.
Hopefully this will cause a shift in the way that parents allow children to interact with the world around them. The more experiences children have with nature, the more sensorially aware they are.
