#3 Mistaking a dog's gender and the owner gets upset....it's like really?

As mentioned in my previous post, it’s a pretty common mistake with kids and pretty uncomfortable. However, with dogs…it’s kind of up in the air. Dogs don’t look gender specific unless they are a specific breed like poodles, which if you were confused are always girls. I’m convinced there are no boy poodles. Same can be said about bulldogs, they are always boys. Even if it is a girl I just pretend it’s a boy regardless.

Anyways beside these gender specific breeds…you just never really know if it’s a boy or a girl and honestly who cares. It gets awkward when you mistake the gender of the dog and the owner actually gets upset. You know, or you hope, they would never actually say something to you but they get tense and throw out some snide remark back like ‘how could you not know my toy Yorkshire terrier that has a purple turtleneck sweater on was a boy?!??’

Attention all dog owners: In this situation, take a step back and realize it’s a dog, they don’t care so neither should you and if I was paying that much attention to your dog’s genitalia we’d have a whole different problem. 

#2 Mistaking a child's gender

This one is never a comfortable moment but there is a way to salvage the situation. Since in some situations you really can't get around saying ‘it or they’ when you just don’t know if it’s a boy or girl…you have to make a quick decision. When confusing the gender of some parent's God's gift to the universe child there are two ways to go about it. 


Situation 1: If you mistake a boy for a girl, you can save the situation a little easier. All you do in this situation is notice something that is just overwhelmingly beautiful about the child. 

Examples: thick curls, long eyelashes, beautiful skin.

Pick something and exaggerate just how overwhelmingly breathtaking this particular feature is on the child. The parent will most likely forget you mistook their precious child for the wrong sex and in return glow with joy about just how beautiful their child actually is, regardless of the real beauty of the kid.

Situation 2: Mistaking a girl for a boy, this one isn’t quite as easy to get out of. At this point I usually just try to blame the mistake on how I’ve been getting my words mixed up all day. Play it off as a long day or how tired you are… if this doesn’t seem to work just mention how you yourself were a tomboy or little girlie when you were young and everything worked out ok for you….

You’ll probably get looks of confusion and judgment but at least it takes the attention of the child mishap off the actual baby and onto what happened with you…