Women like to say that men are dogs. I don’t agree in a behavioral sense, or even in a gross generalization sort of way, but there is a point to be made there.

How women react to men is awfully similar to how they (we) react to stray dogs. Single women, mostly, but I’m sure plenty of married women have a habit of picking up strays in a platonic sense too.

Some women are stray magnets. Every hungry, scroungy, mangy mutt comes to their door. They feed it, doctor it up, and sometimes keep it, becoming the crazy dog lady of the block. They can’t resist being needed, even if it’s just a worthless mutt that someone else tossed out because it bites. They’ll get bit and they’ll keep doing it anyway. We hope they don’t end up with rabies.

Some of us get our share of strays sniffing around, but our actions vary. Sometimes, if it’s a nice looking thing that looks like it might belong somewhere, we’ll read the tag on the collar and call the owner. Sometimes we deliver it to the pound so at least it doesn’t get run over. Sometimes we chase them out of the yard, hollering, “Go home!”

Some of us get tired of shit on our lawns and our livestock being harrassed and just shoot the damned things.

Most of us, I think, have a piece of each of those women in us. OK, maybe the shooting one is pretty much limited to the cowgirls among us, but even the nicest, softest hearted broad has to get sick of cleaning up the front yard once in a while.

I’ve fallen for strays myself, both the four-legged and the two-legged kind. But if it’s one that needs a lot of work, I’m pretty hard-hearted about it. I don’t need to be spending hundreds of dollars on a vet bill to fix someone else’s problem and I don’t need to get my heart broken if I can avoid it. Of course, even the best dogs eventually die, so your heart’s going to get it one way or another, but if you play your cards right, it’ll be worth it in the end. As long as you don’t end up standing there, empty-handed, with fleas and a raging case of ringworm.

Maybe that makes me an asshole, but I think I only reach that status once I start kicking puppies or avoiding dogs entirely out of sheer bitterness and spite. I do let dogs in still, but only good dogs now.