[Attention conservation notice: description of a social phenomenon which may be obvious to some people.]

This post is partially inspired by Alexander Wales’ Majority and Minority, which I would recommend highly.

I’m afraid of dogs. Like, pathologically afraid of dogs. I cross the street to avoid people walking tiny poodles; on a trail, I’ll climb metres into the foliage and wait for people with dogs to pass; unexpected barking can leave me panicking for half an hour (and expected barking isn’t really that much better). As you can imagine, this is pretty unpleasant, but there's not much I can do. There's no such thing as a “dogless” neighbourhood; there are no paths where dogs aren’t walked; there are no apartment buildings with a true no-pets policy, at least not where I live. The brute fact of the matter is that people like me are rare, and people who like dogs are very common, and so in civil society my preferences are discarded. The only (partially) remedy is for me to take personal actions to avoid contact with dogs and inconsiderate dog owners.