Hi all, writing this to discuss and ask for advice about various ways men have harassed my dog ever since I adopted her. I know this isn’t strictly related to dating but I don’t know who else to ask :(

Whenever I take her out on a walk, of course many people think she’s adorable and I understand some people want to pet her. However, without a single exception EVERY woman has asked for permission, while only some men have asked.

This means that when someone touches or interacts with her without my permission, it is always a man.

I find this extremely irritating, and during COVID I’m trying to minimize the number of people touching her. My typical response is to pull her away and say “we’re not touching people during COVID.” But guys will verbally acknowledge this and then STILL beckon her over so she thinks she needs to go over to them and I have to physically drag her away.

But the problem goes beyond touching without asking: many men try to get her attention subtly, in a way that I guess they think I won’t notice. They twiddle their fingers at her eye level while looking at her, they whistle while looking at her, or they make that psps noise. I KNOW they’re trying to get her attention, and it’s rude.

Sometimes I’m trying to have her relieve herself (she’s shy about it sometimes) and she finally settles into position and some man walks by and pspsps at her and it makes me do all the calming down and refocusing of her all over again.

The guys who do that don’t even want to pet her, they don’t slow down or anything. I seriously think they just want to know they can get her attention.

Yesterday at a park there was a man sitting on a bench near me (there were lots of benches and people) while I was sitting on the ground. He watched as I bribed my dog to sit down, bribed her more to lay down, and praised her when she finally laid down— I wanted her to rest because we were on a long walk. Then a few minutes later he proceeded to get something in a crinkly wrapper, stand up and come over to wave and crinkle the wrapper in my dog’s face and then when she obviously got excited and got up off the ground, he obnoxiously told her “this isn’t food!” I was like wtf is wrong with you seriously.... we left right after.

I’m focusing in this post about guys bothering my dog but there are other dog-related things like men attempting to start conversations with me by pretending to be asking about my dog, etc etc. but I’m better at shutting that down because it’s an interaction mainly with me.

What I am not sure how to handle is cases like the above where guys are very obviously trying to catch my dog’s attention but with plausible deniability so I don’t know if I can call it out. I feel so angry afterwards when all I did was say nothing and move away from the person. Anyone have advice? Similar experiences? All I can say is, I don’t think men would harass my dog if I were a man.

Edit: thank you everyone for the support and advice! I’ve just ordered some “do not touch” leash sleeves and I won’t be entertaining any nonsense going forward :)