Yeah yeah, I hate dogs - big whoop. 

It’s not even because I prefer cats, I don’t really like them either - they’re very shifty. 

When I talk about how I feel about dogs, I imagine it’s the same way an old white person tries to explain their prejudice against immigrants. It’s only because I never grew up with them, so I’m not really familiar with their rhythms. I don’t understand them, they feel very foreign to me and I don’t trust them. 

I know I’m going to be in the minority on this one, but lucky for me that’s a role I am somewhat accustomed to. 

Saying you hate dogs, has got to be one of the most unAustralian things you can say. Even writing it feels akin to burning the Australian flag while I drown Peter Garrett in a vat of oil at exactly 12:00am. 

I can’t even say “I hate dogs”. I have to say something like “I didn’t grow up around dogs”. Like I need to give some kind of evaluation of my psychological history to help people understand how it could be possible to hate something so beautiful. 

People ask me if I hate all dogs, they want to see how deep my prejudice goes. And that’s a tricky question to answer because it assumes I know what the different types of dogs are. 

I have no idea what a poodle is and a rottweiler is, if it has four legs, it barks and makes me feel scared - it’s a dog. 

When I say that I hate dog’s it makes me feel like a villain from a Home Alone movie or something. 

They only say that because at some point in the movie they’ll come face to face with a dog that will attack them and they need you to remember that they are uncomfortable around dogs for you to believe the idea that them getting mauled by a dog is sufficient poetic justice. 

Here’s how much I hate dogs, one time my wife and I were on a walk at around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. 

We were walking around our neighbourhood which has a lot of alleyways and backstreets. 

As we were walking down one of the sidestreets out of nowhere a dog that looked like a scarier version of a hellhound started barking viciously at my wife and I. 

It was one of those doggos that gnashed teeth and you could see the saliva just hanging from its mouth. 

Knowing how scared of dogs I was, my wife literally jumped in front of me to protect me from this dog, and I absolutely let her. 

I literally hid behind my small wife while this rando dog just barked and salivated all over. My wife wanted to walk past but I was like, no this alleyway belongs to this dog. 

We later learnt that the dog was female, but at that moment I was the real bitch. 

I’m so scared of dogs, one time I went to these old people’s house and they had this fluffy terrier and it scared me so much I literally jumped up onto their couch. 

I had never been to these people's home before - they were complete strangers and I jumped up on their couches like I was Tom Cruise talking about his love for Katie Holmes on Oprah. 

I will say this though, I wish I didn’t hate dogs. Not because I’m aware this socially isolates me from the majority of the population but because I am envious of the relationship that owners have with these animals.

It seems nice. Except when you guys kiss and let them lick you - that’s fucking disgusting.