Stop misgendering my dog

It happens a couple of times a week: in parks, usually; sometimes outside shops, on Tube trains or in pubs. ‘What kind of dog is he?’ they’ll ask. I answer: ‘Bearded collie crossed with a greyhound which comes out looking like a deerhound but is actually a lurcher.’ But this is pointedly preceded by: ‘She’s a…’ I don’t like to be rude when strangers are being interested and congenial, but I feel compelled to quietly make the point that the dog they’re expressing interest in is not a he but a she. 

News emerged this month that God might be becoming gender neutral. Or at least, certain factions of the Anglican church are considering whether it’s time to stop assuming that the Christian deity is male and instead to become more inclusive by, for example, using they/them pronouns. With this development, dog ownership is surely the last walk of life – or perhaps walkies of life – in which, in relation to gender, the popular mindset remains Victorian.