I use the word distaste, but I hate dogs. I really do. I've always been that way and it's never going to change. I also know that is a very popular opinion.
Years ago I put a picture of myself my a friend's corgi on my dating profile. I know a lot of people like cute stuff like it. It was a total misrepresentation of myself but I have so much trouble meeting women that I wanted to do anything that might catch their eye.
I ended up matching with a woman that I wound up dating for a couple of months. I liked her a lot. I wouldn't call her a 'nutter' as I hear them called a lot on here, but she had a lot of dogs. It was a total of 4 dogs at her house along with the other people that lived with her, including one which was a giant Great Dane type dog.
Things ended up fizzling out with us. A big part of that was she thought I was a dog person. We had to be honest with ourselves. She did not want to live a life without dogs and I did not want to live one with them. She felt like I lied to her about who I was, and I did. It was wrong of me to use that picture. I don't use that picture anymore.
It's been a couple of years and I've been alone for most of it. Through most of that time I've continued to sift through dating apps and keep seeing tons of women that have pictures and mentions of their dogs all over their profiles. Mine simply had no mention about pets or my hatred of dogs.
Recently though I put a statement on my profile that I'm not a dog person. No 'NuTtERs SwIpE lEfT!!!!!11!!' or anything distasteful. Just a simple, full disclosure that I am not a dog person.
Since then I've gotten several messages from women that are really not interested in me. Things like "You really don't like dogs!!?!?" or "Too bad you don't like dogs." They probably would have passed me by otherwise, but now they go to the effort of pointing this out, and there's really nowhere to go from there.
I'm not going to repeat the same talking points you're hear from everyone. Dating apps and dating in this day and age suck. Relationships will be full of compromise but I do not want to live a life with dogs. I just can't do it. I'll hate it and I can't pretend not to. It feels impossible to find someone who feels the same way I do.