In my experience, admittedly a limited spectrum when it comes to the City by the Bay, San Francisco is yet another paradoxical urban mecca when it comes to doggie jimmy-jam.
On one hand, San Franciscans have tons of dogs. Places like Crissy’s Field, Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, and North Beach have thousands of pets visit every single day. Many San Franciscan businesses allow dogs inside, like City Lights Bookstore and Le Marcel Bakery. Their famous cable car system lets dogs come aboard. San Fran’s reputation as the most liberal American city in the country is well-deserved and it reflects as such in their frequent initiatives for animal advocacy.
On the other hand, I’ve experienced a weird kind of blowback from both locals and tourists when I’ve entered into the city’s urban centers with my pack of four Aussies dragging me behind them. Maybe it was a numbers thing. Some dude running ragged with four dogs isn’t the same deal as a solo doggie encounter. But that doesn’t explain their varied degrees of vitriol, and more often outright fear.
I’ve had Chinese shop owners dive for cover when I’ve graced their sidewalk storefront as I considered their windowed goods. I’ve had more than one elder, representing in full your classic cinematic cliche as they cursed in Mandarin while shooing us from their vicinity. Honest to gods, one time I had a rather nimble lo tai po advance upon me with a bona fide broomstick firing off a litany of Cantonese epithets. Or maybe she was wielding a dust mop. Either way, the aggressive action set off my dogs of course, which only bolstered her resolve in assuming my domesticated wolves were there to kick ass, chew gum, and take names.
Usually with a simple glance I can determine whether a business is going to be dog-friendly. For decades I never bothered checking eateries or restaurants unless they had outside patios. Now, in the present we don’t have to worry ourselves with that, what with Mayday’s accreditation as a service dog. I suppose seeing a gathered group of dogs might bring out an ancient evolutionary reaction in humans hiding from packs of wolves. That seems like a long shot, since San Fran is inundated with doggies of all kinds and numbers in every sector of the city. I found it all beyond odd, considering how many dogs Chinatown residents must see every day. Maybe I’ve just visited San Francisco environs on the wrong days at the wrong times?
The same was true at much of the waterfront along the Embarcadero. I’ve seen countless folks walking their dogs thereabouts, from the west pylons of the Bay Bridge all the way over to the Presidio. Nonetheless, oftentimes folks were scrambling to get out of our way, as if I was about to sic the mutts on them to feast. So weird. My Aussies are pinnacles of well-behaved canines. In no way did they appear threatening. They were always happy to pose for tourist photos or give toddlers a happy lick on the cheeks.
I’m not dumb, I get it. A lot of people just aren’t doggie people, some less so when they’re on vacation not expecting to encounter doggies during their exploits into cheap t-shirt shops and fine chocolatiers. That’s fine and dandy, but I admit it’s kinda strange to a dog fella like me. If you don’t like dogs, something went awry in your childhood. I stand by that. Sorry. It almost certainly wasn’t your fault. If you grew up in a doggie-adverse family, that’s on your parents. If you were bit as a kid, that does suck for sure, but that doesn’t mean all dogs ought to be forever verboten. It just means you were unlucky in coming upon one stewarded by shitty parents.
For what it’s worth, I’m a cat dude as well. I’ve had at least one rescue cat in my household for the better part of four decades, sometimes three or four at a time. At my parents’ ranch, we tended dozens of semi-feral barn cats throughout my childhood. Alas, Mom and Dad were 50’s old school and weren’t on top of spaying and neutering, thusly did our wayward feline clan inbreed itself ad nauseum. It’s only these last two years I haven’t had a feline in residency after the 2023 passing of my three-legged wonder cat marmalade tommy boy Maximus Decimus Meridius, named after you-know-who in you-know-what. He was near twenty years old! Great cat. Put up with a lot of doggie shenanigans with a level of patience not often afforded to cats. After his ascension, I decided in my older age after forty odd years of kitty parenting, I was done cleaning litter boxes, and the thing about having outdoor-only cats is sometimes, too often, they disappear forever. I generally host a dual indoor-outdoor household when it comes to cats, but I’ve had at least a half dozen kitties in my lifetime who didn’t come home one night. It destroyed me every time.
How many weeks did I search neighborhoods and all manner of nooks and crannies within a three mile square radius searching for those lost cats? Too many, knowing all the while their vanishing whittled down to two likelihoods. Either some other soul had taken them in and my cat found them better to their liking, or they’d come to an early end of their path. Likely the latter, unfortunately. Have I scoured animal shelter carcass disposal containers in seeking the truth? On occasion. I don’t advise doing that. It’s a grisly business. No, I never did find any bodies. The death of a furry kiddo is utterly devastating, yet not knowing whatever happened to them is far worse.
On the flip side, locals in Haight Ashbury and Berkeley were overtly receptive to us, as were Tenderloin and Union Square passersby. So too were folks residing in the hoity-toity boroughs north of the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin and Sausalito, Santa Rosa and Bolinas, Point Reyes and San Rafael. Maybe the adversity is limited to the core of Chinatown and the waterfront? Beats me. Crissy Field, probably the most popular dog beach in all of Northern California, is a stone’s throw from Chinatown at best. Whatevs. I’m still gonna take my doggies to the Buena Vista’s outside patio and get my Irish coffee and the dogs’ ground beef patties all the same.
We’ve spent considerable time in Marin County. My wife is partial to the Bolinas area, an exclusive community that doesn’t much like advertising itself to the world, so much so locals often remove signage of its township limits on the two ingress roads leading to that strange enclave of rocky beaches and eucalyptus groves. I won’t hype it much here per their preferences, but let’s just say its enigmatic reputation is well earned. Mayday has spent a few weekends thereabouts cavorting on nearby Stinson Beach’s windswept sands. Me, I love Santa Rosa up that way. I’ve attended a few writers’ conferences thereabouts, plus it’s home to the Charles Schulz museum.
Fun factoid about your author, he’s as big a Peanuts fan as they come. Peanuts comic strips were the foundation upon which I founded my reading wherewithal, along with famed Gen X staples The Hardy Boys, The Great Brain, and Encyclopedia Brown. I learned to read at two to three years old. They said I might’ve had a touch of hyperlexia. In hindsight, I imagine I just wanted to figure out what was happening in the bubbles over Charlie Brown’s big round head. Fucked if I know what my true motivations were at three years old, right? I’ve mentioned it before, but I met Sparky once at a writer’s conference. He signed a book for me, shook my hand. It was a seminal moment for yours truly. To make a real time connection with the guy who taught you to read, that’s a thing of things, ain’t it? Don’t even get me started on our collective Gen X sentiment for the Christmas special. Just don’t.
You’ve determined by now your author tends to bring his dogs in places people don’t normally bring dogs. It’s true. I do. Again, as I’ve said numerous times throughout this column, I think well-trained and well-behaved dogs should be allowed anywhere humans are allowed. I do not see dogs as lesser beings and I damned sure know they’re not near as germ-ridden as your average human. Inquiring folks might pose the obvious question here. Why is it I insist on bringing them to dog-adverse events and destinations so frequently, like Chinatown in SF, the Sphere in Vegas, or downtown Los Angeles? To that, I might pose the same query to you concerning your human children. If your answer is your kids are a different deal and I’m outta touch with commonly shared reality, I’d posit you might have some road ahead of you in coming to terms with where our species sits at the present time concerning collective emotional evolution and symbiosis with all life forms. I’d also suggest you might not be fully aware of where exactly humans might currently sit on the totem pole of sapience. Hint: it’s lower than what we tend to believe for ourselves. Good news, though. Small as our patch of the grand existential quilt might be, we’re still an integral part of it. From the smallest grain of sand to the largest macro-galaxy…it’s all connected.
Whew. What a break, amirite?
I like spending time with my furry kiddies same as you do your hairless ones. I enjoy hanging out with my human kiddos just as much, for the record. Dogs, are of the mindset they want to be with you around the clock, unlike our human offspring who desire and require their own space. Dogs never feel that way. I hate leaving my dogs home alone. They don’t like it.
Dogs are in tune with the Light. In this era, we hoomans are not. We may have been at one time and have lost our way. We may yet find it again at some future point in this corporeal existence. It is what is. I don’t make the rules. I just know ‘em. Um, well, some of them. Okay, I only know a few of them, but at least they’re among the most important ones I figure, like oh, I dunno, love is all that truly matters, and music is probably our most impressive contribution for the cosmos to date.
I do like bouncing around the Bay Area with the dogs, yet it’s safe to say if I’m near that area, I’m more inclined to wander over to the Monterey Peninsula rather than the city of peace and noodles. Speaking of which, tune in next week when we’ll be tendering a two-part segment regaling the holy lands of Steinbeck and Eastwood. :)
Good puppers, one and all.