I don't pay a bit of attention to it, if it's just a passerby on the street. If they say, "Oh, he's so cute!" to Lucky, who is a girl, I don't correct them. Why? Chances are they will never see me or my dog again. It just doesn't matter.

I correct family members, or close friends, who will see my dogs umpteen times over.

I own a grooming shop and a boarding kennel, and it's actually a peeve of mine when people get huffy and insulted when you get the sex of their animal wrong. Come on ... we groom and board thousands and thousands and thousands of animals, it's really not possible to memorize the sex of every one. If the dog's name is Brutus or Hank, we assume it's a boy. If the dog's name is Lacie or Suzie, we assume it's a girl. However, we have female dogs named Sam, Toby, Spike .... and we have male dogs named Muffin, Kaya and Lanie.

I certainly don't mind if people politely correct me, I just hate that self-righteous attitude .... "Hrrrrmmp! You should KNOW Muffin is a boy!" How?? He's a shih tzu with a lot of hair, his name is Muffin, and we've never groomed him before!