Good for you.

I had an interesting experience some time ago when I boarded a train at Elephant & Castle for Kent. There were quite a few passengers standing, but I thought I could see an empty seat at the end of the carriage. So I made my way down to the seat and then realized why everyone else had decided to remain standing.

Stretched out full length across one seat was a very shady looking hoody, chin on chest, supposedly dozing – while stretched out on the best part of the other seat was his pit bull type dog with no muzzle, his massive head and battered chops resting between his stretch out legs… As I stood for a moment contemplating the unoccupied part of the seat, it felt like the attention of the entire carriage was now focused on me.

Since I have never had a problem with dogs and I was going all the way to the end of the line, I decided to go for it and hence (carefully) perched my backside on the remainder of the seat – ensuring that I didn’t sit on the toes of the muscular hound.

There then followed a slightly heart stopping moment when both owner and hound raised their heads to eyeball me for a few seconds –followed by relief when they both evidently decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

What I did find disturbing was the unspoken relationship between the man and his dog, both behaving in a menacing unison. When it was time for them to get off, the man simply pushed his boot against the dogs backside and it jumped down and obediently followed its owner to the nearest door.

All very intimidating.