Zeke,
For the past couple years my dentist has been bringing his dog to work with him. It’s well-behaved for a dog, but it still sniffs around my shoes and just generally bothers me. I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of dogs, but in general I don’t think a dog belongs in a dentist’s office. I know I could find another dentist, but I’ve been going to this one for a long time, and he’s a very good dentist. I just can’t bring myself to switch, but I don’t think I can keep going there as long as the dog is in the office. I’d just like to find a way to get rid of the dog without offending the dentist. What should I do? I was thinking about filing an anonymous complaint with OSHA.
From Zeke:
Well, first thing you do is what you don’t do: Don’t call OSHA. I don’t think they care if there’s a dog in the office. All they’re gonna do is make sure the dog is wearing a hard hat.
This is a tricky problem for you. The problem is that you can’t complain about a nice dog. Complaining about nice dogs is like being mean to grannies. Dogs are untouchable in the USA, like cows are in India or frogs are in France. So you can’t complain. Whatever you do, don’t say anything bad about the dog.
So I’ll tell what you do. Bring a live chicken to your next appointment and act like it’s your pet. Make sure you’re all lovey and cuddly with the chicken. Give it a name, something warm and fuzzy like “Mr. Perdue.” When the dentist tells you that you can’t bring a chicken into his office, tell him you don’t like to go anywhere without Mr. Perdue. Tell him that Mr. Perdue gets lonely and that you’re gonna bring him to every appointment from now on so that he can play with the dog. I guarantee that next time you go in for an appointment the dog won’t be there. Either that or the dentist will drop you as a patient, in which case you’ll have to find a new dentist, but you’d have to do that anyway if you couldn’t convince the dentist to leave his dog at home.
Whatever you do, don’t go to a dentist in India, ‘cause a cow getting its teeth cleaned ain’t a pretty sight.