It's been fairly hot and humid in New York City the last few days, as it usually is during the summer. This is tough on the dogs, as they dehydrate very easily, and it is common to see them out and about, tongues lolling, panting, and generally trying to deal with the heat in the best possible way they can, considering that they are wearing a fur coat and don't have sweat glands. My local dog park therefore offers a water faucet, hose, and a dog pool, which is really just a kiddy pool shaped like a paw.
The other day, I went over to the park in the afternoon, and saw that the hose was turned on and sitting in the pool, which was overflowing. I turned the hose off. After I picked up Rosie's poop, I realized that the hose was back on, and I turned it off again—the pool was already overfull. I wanted to see who was turning the hose on, but stopped paying attention, and when I looked again, it was back on. I approached the woman who was sitting nearest to the spigot.
"Is the hose on?" I asked, as if I didn't already know the answer. I guess I was trying to give myself some entree to a line of inquiry that I didn't feel entitled to.
"Yes," she clipped, making sure to avoid eye contact.
"Why is that?" I asked, attempting to maintain an attitude of curious detachment.
"Because it's cleaner." Still no eye contact.
This is where I felt my already short reserve of patience fly away. Cleaner? Really? If it's cleaner at all, then it's only minimally so. It'd be a lot cleaner to dump the pool out every so often and refill it. And certainly none of these things are going to eliminate any bacterial problems the pool might have.
"People like it," she spoke curtly and matter-of-factly, continuing to avoid any actual eye contact, and giving off the air that she didn't really acknowledge my existence, or at least my legitimacy in her world.
People may like it, but that doesn't mean we should do it. There are many reasons why we shouldn't: it's a waste of water, and it's not good for the maintenance of the dog run to have water running over it all day long, and it doesn't actually benefit the dogs in any valuable way.
At this point, she escalated her disdain by outright ignoring me. So there I stood, on the precipice of conflict. I could feel the slight rush of blood to my temple, and tension in my chest. Before my ire had a chance to truly rise, I clipped Rosie's leash onto her collar, turned around, and left.
It was not the first time I've gotten into an argument in the dog park, and nowhere near the most intense; the closest I've ever come to getting into a fist fight was with another dog owner in the run. This is the dual nature of the dog run: I can sit and watch the dogs have fun and express pure joy, and just feel the stress melt away from me, or I can interact with some of the humans, and become tense, angry, and anxious.
I would say I pick my battles, but that's not really true. These days, I try to avoid all battles, and try to tackle them in a different way. In this case, I spoke to someone I know on the board of the dog park about making a new rule prohibiting leaving the water running, and posting said rule in plain view of the hose. This seemed like the best option to me—arguing with someone who doesn't want to think is a surefire way to become ragingly frustrated. On the occasions when I have engaged in arguments with people in the dog park, I often end up in a miserable mood for at least the next 24 hours, taking my frustration out on strangers that happen to get into my way.
It's that kind of acting out that gives New York its bad reputation; when you have this many people packed into this small of a space, negative interactions will happen, and quite often they will be vented onto undeserving others. Sometimes I feel that it's truly a miracle that the city doesn't just descend into complete and utter chaos every day. But it doesn't, because as a society we have encouraged the notion that people who have a disagreement with someone else, like I did, should resolve their disagreement in appropriate, sometimes roundabout, non-violent ways, even if I am completely right and the other person is stubborn, rude, and obnoxious. By-and-large, as a city, we do pretty well, I think. Considering how many stupid people there are out there.
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