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Comment by wbillingsley | Hacker News Reader

> My dogs are as important to me as my friends and family. The first criteria my girlfriend and I apply to where we eat, drink, and travel is whether our dogs can enjoy it with us.

Eek, the article lost me here. Much as I have a very dear dog that is "part of the family", I do tend to think it's important for people to remember that no your dog is not as important as your family. It is a dog, not a four-legged human. Time in the back yard while you're out is just fine, and it would probably enjoy occasional trips to a dog-of-leash area to chase other dogs much more than "enjoying a restaurant"...

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> it's important for people to remember that no your dog is not as important as your family

I think it is an accurate statement to say that, for some people, pets are as important as their family. What is it that you think these people are not remembering?

Some people might not have children, and their pets are like their children. Some people don't have any other family.

It's absolutely an accurate statement that for some people, pets are as important as their family, or pets are their family.

For various reasons, me and my SO will never be able to have kids. The dogs are our family.

That said, we're responsible pet owners. We don't pretend they're service dogs. We'll take the dogs to pet friendly venues but we won't bend the rules and take them places that we should not.

Replying to the parent comment, it's important to remember that not everyone has the same family situation.

SO = family. I would honestly be very surprised if even you would be game to tell him/her that they are only on the level of importance to you as one of your dogs. Or that if there were a fire, you'd be rushing out the door with a dog and leaving your partner to the flames...

While I'd say "nice try" at trying to imply some sort of assumption and claim a diversity moral high ground, children are not the only kind of family (nor even did anything in my post even mention children), and whatever relations or friends you might have, yes I absolutely would hope that you would consider their needs as more important than those of your pets.

What about for people who don't have family, either in a literal sense or because they are estranged from them?

>"Some people might not have children, and their pets are like their children."

Because someone does not have a children does not confer human rights or equivalency on a dog. This is such a distortion.

This whole idea of "its like my child" or "this dog is family" is always used when it comes to justify taking dogs into shared spaces that are built for humans.

However if it were a child or family would you leave it all alone in a 500 square foot apartment for 8 hours a day 5 days a week while you went to work? Or would you feed them the the exact same food every day? In those cases "its just a dog" right?

So it seems its only very selectively "like a child" then. It's really only "like a child" when its convenient to justify some perceived right to bring your dog wherever you please when its not actually necessary to address a real disability.

>>> it's important for people to remember that no your dog is not as important as your family

>> Some people might not have children, and their pets are like their children.

> Because someone does not have a children does not confer human rights or equivalency on a dog. This is such a distortion.

You're misintepreting what I said. I never said or implied anything about dogs having human rights or equivalent. I was responding specifically to a statement that "your dog is not as important as your family". I said that for some people their dogs are, to them, like family members, and to them, just as important. That's all I said, and I wasn't making any particular statement or implied statement about the other issues such as taking dogs to a restaurant.

>However if it were a child or family would you leave it all alone in a 500 square foot apartment for 8 hours a day 5 days a week while you went to work? Or would you feed them the the exact same food every day? In those cases "its just a dog" right?

This is also where some entitlement comes in. People faking that they have service dogs so they can get it into their apartment building then leaving it while they're at work all day, especially if they're single.

I love dogs but I'm not going to own one until I can personally make sure I'm providing a good environment and training for it. That's not a studio apartment in Central LA at this moment so I'm happy to wait. It's not a child but it is a being I'm responsible for.

> I think it is an accurate statement to say that, for some people, pets are as important as their family. What is it that you think these people are not remembering?

That they are human, and their dogs are not.

You're correct that some people believe that their dogs are part of their family, but that doesn't obligate the rest of us to treat them as such.

Why don't these crazy animal people spend their energy trying to get dog kennels to open a restaurant, instead of trying to make the rest of the world put up with their animals?

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