Oh my goodness, I just logged on to restart a thread on this very issue. You’d think I’d have got used to it with my last dog, Meg, but I honestly think I get it even more with Ruby. I guess living as we do in the middle of London she just meets soooo many people every day and we get asked ALL. THE. TIME. I would say, at a conservative estimate, twenty five times a day. I find that I respond differently, according to how I’m asked. The ones that annoy me are the people who just ask straight out with no preamble ‘Hey, how’d he lose his leg’ (dogs are always ‘he’) not as part of any conversation but just literally as we walk past in the street, just to satisfy their curiosity, like scratching an itch or something. Those people, and there are a lot of them, I tend to just reply ‘Oh, she lost it before I adopted her.’ Which is true and usually shuts them up though sometimes they keep on digging ‘So you don’t know?’ Etc. 

People who are actually interested in Ruby and not just as a curiosity, I am always happy to talk to. I will tell them the full story of how she was surrendered with a badly broken leg and the rescue tried to save it etc and when they say as again they so often do that it’s amazing it makes no difference to dogs at all, I will gently do my best to educate them. 

Children, I will always engage with, as we both love talking to children. Sometimes, I do find it a bit hard to explain to the younger ones especially. I’ve sometimes told them it was badly hurt and they couldn’t stop it hurting so they had to take it off and now she’s much happier because she’s not in pain. But then I worry they might think that if they graze their knee someone’s going to cut their leg off. (I am possibly overthinking this… 🤨). If kids do seem saddened by her missing leg then I always point out that even without it she’s still got one more than they have and that seems to work quite well. 

The worst people are those who ask with an edge of accusation, partly perhaps because Rubes is still so young and they’re like ‘How have you managed to break him already!’ And the pitiers of course, who mean well, I know, but i just HAVE to make sure they understand that Ruby requires no one’s pity.