Yesterday while we were waiting in the doctor’s office, we met a woman, her adult daughter, and her infant granddaughter. They were sitting in front of us, and kept turning around to look at Hestia and ask questions about her.
Of course as a result, Hestia was staring right back at them!
They started to become unnerved by Hestia’s googley eyes as she stared at them. They started making comments about her eyes being “too big” and “bulging”. I explained how the breed standard says that Chin should have “a look of perpetual astonishment” as I do often when people make comments about Hestia’s googley eyes.
The longer they stared at her, the longer she stared at them, and they started not to like it. They started wondering if she didn’t like them, if she was going to attack them and so on.
Thankfully at that point we were called back to meet with the doctor. After our appointment, we were sitting in a different waiting room waiting to get an appointment made, and this family walked by. The adult daughter actually put her hand up over her face and started saying quite loud “She’s staring me down!” and other similar comments.
Poor Hestia. She didn’t ask to have googley eyes, and she didn’t ask the people to keep staring at her! I didn’t think it was my job to prevent Hestia from looking back at people who were staring at her!
If they had seen a human with bulging eyes from a thyroid/metabolic disorder, I hope they wouldn’t have stared. If they were that weirded out, they could have chosen to keep quiet and look away from Hestia. Other than getting a “Staring is Rude” leash slide and pointing to it, I am not sure there’s much else you could have done! Some people just can’t keep their comments to themselves.
My service dog recently had enucleation of both eyes, she has been my PTSD SD for the last 4 years. Also, a beautiful chin. She is still able to function as my SD, however is now carried in a bag, instead of leashed. She had terrible glaucoma for the previous 2 years and medication stopped controling the pressures. She is so much happier, know, She is amazing and gets around fantastically. We do get some strange looks and wierd comments.
Yay another Chin SD! And a PSD as well! If you ever want to talk with more psych dog handlers, the non-profit I helped to found, Psychiatric Service Dog Partners, has a free online peer guidance group that you can join. It is for people with PSDs or PSDITs. It does require a phone call to join, so if you’re interested you can call me at 805-876-4256 or fill out the contact form on our webpage http://www.psych.dog .
She’s adorable but sometimes humans can be so ignorant!!
Poor precious baby! I love you Hestia! Your beautiful! If I was there I would give you hugs and kisses!
I would have made the motion of hestia coming at them in attack mode growling..lmao I’m immature that way. People are so ignorant and I think Hestia’s eyes are beautiful. Our baby has googley eyes as well. I think it adds to their own unique personality. So f@#k em!!! Again my Immaturity coming out. Hugs for both of you and sweet kisses for Hestia
Too funny! All they had to do was not look. 🙂
EXACTLY!
It truly is a mark of other ppls immaturity, and no fault of yours, or Hestia. Lol, I work at starbucks, you should see some of the issues we deal with. My PTSD dog has bicolored eyes, one ice blue and one soft brown, I get a lot of mixed reactions, from astonished love, to concern for blindness, to ITS A DEMON! PPl really can be lame. I find myself often answering questions and educating on breed and types. Stay strong and laugh, what better?
I think she is georgous ! I’d love her to stare at me! I can’t believe how rude and uneducated these people were.Your girl is lovely, and she probably wanted them to pet her. I am astonished how some people ,not familiar wirh this wonderful breed,think they are strange or ugly! I,personally had a similar event take place, when a person said how ugly a Japanese Chin was,On the spot,we adopted her! She’s going to be 13yrs.young Oct.27th!
I’m happy your Chin is 13 years young! How dare someone say how ugly while you were adopting her!