You X? I guess you believe Y!

[FunkyMunky]

You larp/play DnD?

Ooooohh, the DnD assumptions. I always, always get:
"You play Dungeons and Dragons? Seriously? Let me guess, you're an elf." (said in a tone that elves are the only characters a female will like cause they're 'pretty').

No. Dwarf. A short, gruff, muscle-y, ale-drinking Dwarf. But good job!

I have two (depending on the group) - one is an Eladrin (high elf)..but I wanted a highly agile Rogue. The other is human. Plain ol' human.

I want a Toller (Nova Scotia Duck-tolling Retriever), but alas, they're a rare breed here. And I have one cat and want another.

Any dog can be dangerous with bad breeding and/or treatment.

[Kimblee]

I think the problem with pit bulls is that you can't tell from looking at them whether they are:

1. Normal, which is to say, not dog-safe, but bred to be utterly nonaggressive toward humans (under reasonable conditions, including basic training, being treated humanely, and not being frightened, ill, or in pain).

2. Descended from modern pit fighting and/or drug dealer protection lines.  These dogs are bred for aggression, plain and simple, and have been observed trying to kill each other as puppies.  Rescues find them extremely hard to handle because their natural state is psychotic.  Luckily (at least for the pitties), druggies and dog fighters appear to be turning more to chows to get their super-aggressive dogs.

3. Born normal and raised by drug dealers, "having a mean dog makes me macho" jerks, or similar people who use brutality to make a normal dog into a killer.  I knew one of these dogs once.  He ended his life by jumping through a plate glass window in an attempt to attack his owner, who kept him chained up outside all the time and beat him with a belt "in order to make him a better guard dog."  Some of these dogs can be rescued, retrained, and rehomed with people who treat them well.

4. Feral, from any bloodline; these dogs can be very dangerous because they don't have a natural fear of humans (being dogs) and they don't listen to humans either (being completely untrained).  Feral life is very rough on a dog, BTW, and quite a few adult ferals who are captured and retrained settle happily into life in a human family.  Interestingly, some of them appear to go through a period of nightmares and other symptoms of what in a human would be called PTSD.

I guess the moral of the story is, be very very careful around any dog that's wandering around without supervision, especially a big one.

Oh, and two dogs have attacked me with deadly intent in my life.  (The psycho pit bull attacked my dog, but not me.)  One was a puny, weedy-looking Labrador and the other was a teacup poodle about the size of my foot!

Back on topic: "If you love cats, you must hate dogs, or vice versa.  If you like cats and I like dogs, we can't get along."  Actually I like both and think that the ideal household should contain at least one of each, although I don't have a dog at present.  I'm bipetsual.

Its a shame that they scare me... in pictures, they have such charming "smilie" faces.

The ones around here are mostly from fighting stock... and the Br33ders (nasty folks!) brag about this. I can't think of anyone from that area that I know that hasn't been attacked, at least once. When a dog isn;t tough enough, the owners abandon it in the country... right around where we live. (Country road directly off a highway.)

I feel sorry for them... I feel like they kinda got born into a raw deal.

On-Topic: I am very multi-petsual. Everything seems kinda adorable to me.

[Keres]

I've been attacked four times by dogs. All pits.

Interestingly, I've been attacked six times by dogs.  Four of them were chihuahuas.

I think the problem with pit bulls is that you can't tell from looking at them whether they are:

Same is true of any dog, actually.  The other two dogs that bit me were a German Shephard (the only attack where I was actually in real danger, someone had to pull the dog off me and I still have scars from the attack) and a St Bernard (bite needed a trip to the doctor, but I don't think he was actually 'attacking' me, poor thing was like 24 years old, blind, and I tripped over him while he was sleeping.  He yelped, sunk his teeth into my leg, growled a bit, then woke the rest of the way up and was very apologetic)

I know of a 6 week old baby who was brutally killed by a Pomeranian. 

I also know of a pit bull that gave his life defending his boy from an attack by four other dogs, all feral mutts.  RIP Dobo.

[JadeAngel]

Ha! Oh lord, I deal with this set of assumptions all the time (I'm so very sick of feeling like I should apologise for liking pro-wrestling). Hey, all the athletic men running around in teeny tiny pants wouldn't possibly have anything to do with my appreciation of it. 

Nope. Nope nothing at all... 

Personally I like it for the subtle nuances of character, the depth and sophistication of the plot lines. My interest is purely artistic...



As an Australian I get a lot of assumptions

- You're Aussie, do you ride a kangaroo to work?

No, because I'd like to keep my arms attached to my body.

- You must drink a lot of beer.

No, I prefer Sauvignon Blanc.

- Wrestled any crocodiles recently?

See my answer about the kangaroos.

- Do you have television/the internet/phones/electricity in Australia?

No, we entertain ourselves by sitting in our caves banging rocks together.


 

[Kimblee]

I've been attacked four times by dogs. All pits.

Interestingly, I've been attacked six times by dogs.  Four of them were chihuahuas.

I think the problem with pit bulls is that you can't tell from looking at them whether they are:

Same is true of any dog, actually.  The other two dogs that bit me were a German Shephard (the only attack where I was actually in real danger, someone had to pull the dog off me and I still have scars from the attack) and a St Bernard (bite needed a trip to the doctor, but I don't think he was actually 'attacking' me, poor thing was like 24 years old, blind, and I tripped over him while he was sleeping.  He yelped, sunk his teeth into my leg, growled a bit, then woke the rest of the way up and was very apologetic)

I know of a 6 week old baby who was brutally killed by a Pomeranian. 

I also know of a pit bull that gave his life defending his boy from an attack by four other dogs, all feral mutts.  RIP Dobo.

Four, huh?  At least it wasn't a huge breed. (But seriously, an inbred chihuahua is just as vicious as an inbred pit. Just smaller.) I'm luck enough that even though I've had to deal with a few mean chiis, never been injured. (And my own chiis are good pups.)

Poor Dobo. What a good dog.

PS: BTW: The St. Bernard sounds like my (dealy departed) dog Zeus. (He was a dane though) Blind as a bat and easily startled, but honestly a sweetie. The only St. Bernard I've known, aside from seeing a few in passing (warning, sad) killed my goose. Like the case with pits, I assume the problem was with the particular dog, not the breed. (Dog in question was inbred... Its sadly very common, at least in this part of texas, to breed animals back through their parents, and sometimes grandparents.)

[Keres]

Four, huh?  At least it wasn't a huge breed.

I'm only counting bites that required stitches at 'attacks'. 

My step-grandmother had, at one point, 9 of them.  She got two papered dogs from good breeeders, intending to become a breeeder, but the first two litters they had that she could never bear to part with (she went on vacation for a week and my grandfather took all the dogs to the vet for a mass spay/neuter, she never quite forgave him for that).

They had zero training and were confined a lot, so they were bored thus they all had massive chewing issues.  Two of the bites I got rescuing belongings from being chewed up, like my mothers FABULOUS $800 purse she'd won as a door price at some seminar.  One bite I got rescuing one of the pups when it fell into the septic tank my grandfather was going to get pumped (don't blame the pup, it was hurt and scared and half drowned in a truly disgusting mess). 

The other bite was, in my mind, the major issue.  I was laying on the couch watching TV with the one of the pups curled up on my chest when all of a sudden she lunged forward and started snarling and biting.  It was actually the first dog bite I ever received, at the tender age of six, and could have been very, very bad even with a dog that small, as she went for my face.  She got in a couple bites because I was so startled it took me a second to react, and then she had a hold of my lip so I couldn't just fling her across the room. 

While I was getting the stitches on my nose and mouth, my step-grandmother was taking the pup to the vet to have it put down, as she'd been watching and knew there was nothing I had done to provoke the attack.  It's rare, but just like with people, some dogs are just not quite right.

Poor Dobo. What a good dog.

Pits can be absolutely wonderful with children, if they aren't from the inbred backyard fight stock that jerks who should be horsewhipped in the public square have. American Staffordshire Terriers (the real name of a pit bull) have a strong family instinct and are loyal and protective.  They thrive when given some training and a 'job', even if that job is just 'keep an eye on the kids'.

I'm a little concerned for my new pup, because already people have mistaken him for a pit (he's a boxer/lab mix) and I swear, they are looking to get bit with the way they react to a perceived pit.  The jerk at the lake the other day mistook him for a pit and started acting aggressively to 'warn him off' as we were passing by.  Bo, having a defensive instinct towards his boy, interpreted this as a threat against his family and hackles went up.  A crisis could have occurred if I had not had a firm grip on the leash, because Bo is still a pup and hasn't yet learned that some people are stupid and he should ignore them.  And the crisis would have occurred all because of this mistaken notion that pits are inherently bad, vicious dogs.

There has been research to indicate that not all 'pit bull' attacks were perpetrated by pit bulls.  People just see a vague muzzle shape on a dog of the approximate size and assume it's a pit bull. 

Make # 8 a bit thinner and give it a bit of white on it's jaw, and it would be Bo.

[Black Delphinium]

"You play D&D?  You must be d@ting/married to the DM.  Bet your characters never die, har har."  Actually, we got to know each other at a D&D group DMed by somebody else, then got married.  And I have lost a lot of characters in his game world.  By the way, thanks for insulting me by insinuating that I can't play and am only there because of my Scrabble skills, and then insulting my husband by accusing him of playing favorites.

Then there was the jerk who asked what my character looked like and looked surprised when I described her as muscular and plain, with a nose that had been broken and set a bit crooked and a few scars along her forearms, a short haircut to fit under her helmet and worn but well-cared-for clothes and armor.  He pointed to a picture of what the DM's girlfriend's character was supposed to look like.  Apparently I was supposed to be a heavily made up, long-haired, well-stacked sorceress who wandered around the wilderness in high heels and lingerie.

He didn't stick around for long.

My fighter character used to braid her hair and coil it around her head for extra padding under the helm. And my DH doesn't favor my character over any of the others, either...so far we haven't lost a player character, but according to my DH, that's because our teamwork is frighteningly good. Actually, when I DM, I think I'm harder on his character than he is on mine when he's the DM. Just ask him about the time I had a village's worth of teenage girls following his human paladin everywhere. Yes, my husband's paladin had groupies  .

And yes, the assumptions people make about gamers can be pretty amusing...for example, I do not now, nor have I ever, lived in my parents' basement. But guess where my non-gamer sister lives right now. To be fair, it's more like an apartment and it's partly to help her and her DH save for a house of their own. And since our folks are getting older, it actually gives me some peace of mind to know that my sister is right there.

In college, I was BFF to the GM(he didn't have a boyfriend on campus). He pushed me WAAAYYY harder than anyone else in the group(except for that one time in Exalted, but even that had harsh repercussions for my character).
Now I'm married to our GM, and I get no special treatment.

[M-theory]

He pointed to a picture of what the DM's girlfriend's character was supposed to look like.  Apparently I was supposed to be a heavily made up, long-haired, well-stacked sorceress who wandered around the wilderness in high heels and lingerie.

Well, you know...you get what you pay for.

[JocelynCS]

Two friends of mine have a pair of Pitt Bull/Rottweiler mixes.  They are quite enthusiastic, but the greatest danger from them when a stranger (like me) walks up is DEATH BY SLOBBER!  They are made of muscle, naturally, and rather young, so they jump up and can easily knock an adult woman over, then lick you to pieces!

Once they calm down, I sat on the porch yakking with the friends for 20 minutes with one dog's head in my lap and scratching the other dog behind the ears, each dog on either side of me. 

I tend to confuse people - I'm a confirmed cat person (I have three) - and people assume I hate dogs.  On the contrary - I love them, and if I had a bigger home with a yard, I might well consider getting one. 

[firefightingal]

I always get comments when I take our 3 St. Bernards (two who are currently certified Therapy dogs), plus the one we own, plus our mastiff out for a walk.

I love parents who SNATCH their children off the ground and back away from us slowly, while my 4 stand and stare at them.

"ooh, such biiiig doggies, they must BITE".  Uh, no, they have to wake up from their naps in order to even consider going outside let alone bite someone.

"oh GOD, you must have SO much DROOL all OVER your house"  Have you ever heard of drool towels?  Cleaning supplies?

"What do you do with your son while you're looking after the dogs?"  Um, he's with me when he's not in school, and the majority of the time, he likes to be outside.  After that, I usually ignore him and leave him locked in his closet....

On my career/outside interests:

"oh, you're a FIREFIGHTER?  You must meet SO many HOT men!"...No, have you seen some of the men I work with?

"It's too bad you didn't finish high school and got a BETTER job"...No, I have a 4 year undergraduate degree in sports administration, plus a masters in public administration, I just happen to love my career!

"you play hockey?  At your age?  Are you a l*sbian?"  Um, hockey paid my tuition in university, and it keeps me in shape.  As for the other question, I don't even answer.

[firefightingal]

Ooh, I forgot:

"so you're from Canada??? You must have winter all year long!"  Nope, we've got 4 seasons, and today it's a balmy 75 degrees.

"so you're from Canada?  You must live in igloos"  Nope, we live in a house!  With doors and windows and EVERYTHING!

"so you're from Canada?  Do you know my cousin Joe?  He lives in Vancouver"  No, I live 3700 kms east of Vancouver.  Haven't got a clue who your cousin is.

[M-theory]

Ooh, I forgot:

"so you're from Canada??? You must have winter all year long!"  Nope, we've got 4 seasons, and today it's a balmy 75 degrees.

"so you're from Canada?  You must live in igloos"  Nope, we live in a house!  With doors and windows and EVERYTHING!

"so you're from Canada?  Do you know my cousin Joe?  He lives in Vancouver"  No, I live 3700 kms east of Vancouver.  Haven't got a clue who your cousin is.

Corollary: "You're an American? Trying to take advantage of the exchange rate, eh?"*

*Not that it's that fantastic now anyway.

[Keres]

I always get comments when I take our 3 St. Bernards (two who are currently certified Therapy dogs), plus the one we own, plus our mastiff out for a walk.

Ahem...you forgot the pics?

oh, you're a FIREFIGHTER?  You must meet SO many HOT men!

See above.  It's rude keeping all those cute firemen to yourself.  Don't deny it

[extranormal]

"so you're from Canada?  Do you know my cousin Joe?  He lives in Vancouver"  No, I live 3700 kms east of Vancouver.  Haven't got a clue who your cousin is.

Although you're sure he's really, really nice. 

[Kimblee]

Four, huh?  At least it wasn't a huge breed.

I'm only counting bites that required stitches at 'attacks'. 

My step-grandmother had, at one point, 9 of them.  She got two papered dogs from good breeeders, intending to become a breeeder, but the first two litters they had that she could never bear to part with (she went on vacation for a week and my grandfather took all the dogs to the vet for a mass spay/neuter, she never quite forgave him for that).

They had zero training and were confined a lot, so they were bored thus they all had massive chewing issues.  Two of the bites I got rescuing belongings from being chewed up, like my mothers FABULOUS $800 purse she'd won as a door price at some seminar.  One bite I got rescuing one of the pups when it fell into the septic tank my grandfather was going to get pumped (don't blame the pup, it was hurt and scared and half drowned in a truly disgusting mess). 

The other bite was, in my mind, the major issue.  I was laying on the couch watching TV with the one of the pups curled up on my chest when all of a sudden she lunged forward and started snarling and biting.  It was actually the first dog bite I ever received, at the tender age of six, and could have been very, very bad even with a dog that small, as she went for my face.  She got in a couple bites because I was so startled it took me a second to react, and then she had a hold of my lip so I couldn't just fling her across the room. 

While I was getting the stitches on my nose and mouth, my step-grandmother was taking the pup to the vet to have it put down, as she'd been watching and knew there was nothing I had done to provoke the attack.  It's rare, but just like with people, some dogs are just not quite right.

Poor Dobo. What a good dog.

Pits can be absolutely wonderful with children, if they aren't from the inbred backyard fight stock that jerks who should be horsewhipped in the public square have. American Staffordshire Terriers (the real name of a pit bull) have a strong family instinct and are loyal and protective.  They thrive when given some training and a 'job', even if that job is just 'keep an eye on the kids'.

I'm a little concerned for my new pup, because already people have mistaken him for a pit (he's a boxer/lab mix) and I swear, they are looking to get bit with the way they react to a perceived pit.  The jerk at the lake the other day mistook him for a pit and started acting aggressively to 'warn him off' as we were passing by.  Bo, having a defensive instinct towards his boy, interpreted this as a threat against his family and hackles went up.  A crisis could have occurred if I had not had a firm grip on the leash, because Bo is still a pup and hasn't yet learned that some people are stupid and he should ignore them.  And the crisis would have occurred all because of this mistaken notion that pits are inherently bad, vicious dogs.

There has been research to indicate that not all 'pit bull' attacks were perpetrated by pit bulls.  People just see a vague muzzle shape on a dog of the approximate size and assume it's a pit bull. 

Make # 8 a bit thinner and give it a bit of white on it's jaw, and it would be Bo.

Stitches? From a chii bite? *stares down at chii-baby on lap* Wow. That blew my mind a bit.

#8 is super cute! (I winz da quiz! And... what is a Bull Terrier? That dog was adorable. I clicked on all the piccies to see what they all were.)

All my attacks were either pits or mutts with lots of pit. I've been around 'em for a long, long time.

Mind you, not every pit I've known has been a mean dog. Our neighbor had a beautiful one with the bluest eyes that I adored. It had a pink nose, which neighbor pointed out constantly. Not sure what was so special about her nose, but I'm sure it was a very useful nose...

I'm sorry the pup in the septic bit you, but I'm sure it was inwardly quite grateful to you.