???

I don’t know what it is, but I have a serious bee in my bonnet lately. It’s about people who insist that whatever you say is wrong. And it’s not that they know the whole situation. It’s not that what you said is completely impossible. After all, it’s not like I said I have a pet Roq, and I take flights with him while riding my purple Pegasus.

It’s just that what happened to you was very unlikely in the great scheme of statistics.

Lots of it involves my dogs. For example, no one ever believes that I got I got a Kerry for free or that I found a Podengo (possibly mixed with something else—border terrier? Whippet?) at the pound because both are unusual breeds. So, they insist I have some poodle mixes. Or that the pound could not have possibly been wrong about the Hound’s breed and she is, in fact, a Standard Poodle (and if you look at a photo of a podengo, you’ll see how little the two resemble each other…not to mention the Hound is tiny). And of course the battle with our former vet about the health issues our kerry had. Her insistence that it wasn’t allergic IBD, because that is very rare.

Well, just because it’s unusual, doesn’t make it not so. As Sherlock Holmes used to say, “When you have eliminated the impossible, what is left—no matter how improbable—must be the truth”.

And in most cases, the arguing doesn’t even really have any point. So what if I want to believe that my dog has a rare breed in her somewhere? My animals are all desexed, do not compete in anything, and are just lovely little housepets. The breed doesn’t actually factor in to anything except to describe what she looks and acts like. I am happy to concede that, as I have no papers, she may be a mutt and it just the predominant breed. And if I think my dogs have a certain health issue, what’s the harm in running the test to eliminate it as a possibility? The vet would be able to send me that bill (which I’d pay) and possibly have the opportunity to shut me up for good.

Other stuff is our health, stuff about my son, etc. And again…it doesn’t make any sense. If I request a health test, there is no harm in running it. If I say my boy says a certain thing, just smile and nod.

It doesn’t affect you to, as you see it, indulge my ludicrous deluded insanity.

Leave it alone.